Midnight Sun
by Chakra11
Summary: Three years after the Revolution, still unable to control her Avatar State or to energybend, Korra finds the brothers in a secluded village in the North, and asks Noatak to teach her how to resist bloodbending. Set in a universe where Tarrlok had made a different choice 28 years ago and Amon had showed up to Korra's challenge alone.
1. Art of Breathing

Following an abandoned story. Set in a universe where Tarrlok had made a different choice 28 years ago, where Amon had showed up to Korra's challenge alone and both had made some pretty unfortunate choices. Post final. Rated M (for mild dub-con, violence and... well it's bloodbending brothers you can pretty much extrapolate). As of right now the pairings are Amon+Korra and Tarrlok+OC.

_If you follow my author account: sorry for the email spam._

_I re-uploaded this because and after finally going through it and rewriting certain parts I particularly disliked, the story is finally heading where I had always wanted it to be — despite my weak spot for sensitive little bildungsroman, the whole thing is meant to lay a touch on not Korra but Northern Water Tribe/Fire Nation royalty and whatever happened in the giant lacuna between AtLA and LoK. Definitely not worth a read if you aren't unhealthily invested in the story of Yakone's family. _

* * *

The Art of Breathing

/*/

The Northern Water Tribe is vast with a much greater variety in its geography-for one thing, they certainly don't have forests like this in the south. The twenty-year-old finds no love for it, for mortals simply feel dwarfed, outlived in the presence of this raw, primeval existence, even when the mortal is the Avatar herself. Embraced by dense silence, the forest is filled with something intangibly cruel, the canopy a battlefield full of twisted branches tussling; the soil a playground, where bulky roots bully the skinnier ones deep into the snow.

Korra can barely keep up with his stride. Every now and then she has to jog up just to keep him in sight. His steps leave a trail in the snow, hardly distinguishable. Strangling the urge to ask him to slow down, Korra deepens his footprints with her smaller ones, trying to avoid the misshapen roots lurking under the snow—she's practically running after him now. She feels like an aged hunter, chasing an oryx-pinto way too fast for her.

Already, she's regretting this.

* * *

Roughly a month earlier, after Katara's funeral, Korra scrawled a note, before packing her stuff into a yak skin bag and sneaking out of the White Lotus compound:

_Sorry guys. I need answers and I need to find them alone. Don't worry. I'll be back, safe and sound as always._

_p.s. Bo, take good care of Naga for me, please. You know what she loves to eat._

More than five weeks it took her to find this spirits-forsaken town without having people recognize who she is—not an easy task, when your face practically serves as a passport. From the South Pole to the Northern Water Tribe, the sea-sickness compounded by the absence of Naga had made her trip nothing but miserable.

_There's no other choice._ On her fifth ferry ride in three weeks, leaning against the cold wall in her cabin, the Avatar reminded herself of that. She'd been planning this since the worsening of Katara's condition—a defense mechanism of sorts, to keep her mind off the matter itself. Korra gazed out queasily to the half-moon looming over the sea before she puked into a bucket. In the past three years, she'd gone into the Avatar State five times. Unwillingly, meaning but to warn. Floating, Korra had watched—the last time with Aang standing right next to her—that _thing_ slaughter and set streets on fire burning for days. She'd sniveled into his shoulder, nails digging into his robe, begging for help.

"Stop this," she'd begged, "kill me, take my bending away... Just make it _stop_." She felt his heart against hers, beating in the same desperate rhythm.

"I can't help you, Korra. I really would but I couldn't. Trust me"—he brushed her tears away with a feathery touch—"your pain _is_ our pain. But it doesn't work like that. You'd have to find the answers by yourself."

Screaming in agony, the thugs—_bad_ people, still, people she'd once vowed to protect—burned beneath their feet. "But… you're the greatest among us all," she said sniffing. "If you can't fix me, then who can?"

Even his saddest smile felt warm. "I wasn't born great, Korra. None of us is," said Aang resting a hand on her shoulder. "I am your guide, I am _you—_and that's why I am not your solution. After all, we are mortals, just like them." His voice was solemn, the last word swallowed by the sound of an explosion. At that, Korra came back. And that was the last time she saw Aang. No matter how hard she tried to meditate she couldn't find a way to connect with him. Her friends had been understanding: Tenzin had done all he could to shelter her from negative publicity, Asami holding her shaking, blood-bathed hands every time after she came back, Mako and Bolin standing beside her, their figures silent shields, protecting her from the curious eyes. They had done everything. Everything but getting her to talk.

_I really tried. _Korra murmured to no one in the cabin. A few seconds later she jumped at the broadcast on the deck: the ship was sailing into Fire Nation waters. Checking the map once more, she realized it'd take a few more weeks to get to the North Pole. But she was half way there, half way to a closure.

Following were twenty days of sea-sickness, ostrich-horse-sickness, lack of hygiene and clean clothes. Korra swore to all the spirits she'd never again travel this far alone and unprepared. At the end of the search, no longer counting on that sorry map of hers, she'd been inquiring the way of local villagers, none of whom had recognized her face. Knowing nothing about their new identities, it hadn't been easy locating two people out of thin air. However, slowly she managed to put the little pieces into a complete tangram, with determination she didn't know she had. Finally the name _Kassuq_ caught her attention—newcomer, Water Tribe origin, with a younger brother, in their early forties. Those and a vague address, nothing more. One step closer_._

Had it not been for the familiar accent in the last couple of days, Korra would have been in utter disbelief that she was in Water Tribe, only far away from Unalaq's flourishing capital. Shabby houses gave way to shabbier igloos as her journey continued—_people still live in igloos?_—while other signs of modern living faded away at the same pace. One more thing she'd noticed: the sun, here at the North Pole, rises and sets once every year. By late June it's been moving around the horizon for the past six months, slowly reaching its highest circuit of the sky at the summer solstice, creating the midnight sun. Growing up in the South Pole, Korra has experienced the polar days and nights quite a few times, but has never got used to it like the rest of her people. As a kid, she'd spent weeks sulking in her bedroom, refusing to go out for training, her eyes bloodshot like a neurotic rabbit-mole due to the lack of sleep. _It's happening again_, thought Korra, quickening her pace. She hadn't had a decent night of sleep in a week. But undeniably, she was getting closer.

The Avatar, a top-notch firebender, had two lighters in her bag but forgot to bring a watch. So when she was finally on the porch of a humble, two-storied house, Korra could only assume by the rumbling of her stomach that it was afternoon. _So this is it_, the former Equalists' leader, causing so much chaos that until very recently she was still busy putting out his fire. And if she was to find the answers as told, then this should be it. Korra blinked the fatigue away, and knocked at the door, lips moving quickly, mumbling the speech she'd prepared.

A woman answered the door. Early thirties, much taller than Korra and oh—_a baby in her arm_.

"Hello?" The smile on her lips reached her eyes at the sight of this young visitor._ OK, pretty, pretty. She's pretty_—a vast sea of words praising a woman's appearance, pretty was the word Korra could think of at the moment.

"Hi, uh… sorry, I'm looking for a… Kassuq?" _Wrong address, say it say it say it. Say there is no Kassuq._

She turned back to the living room. "_Kassuq_! There's someone at the door for you!" Korra felt her heart lurch. The baby grinned at her. _Run, Avatar_. Footsteps, heavier ones. _It's not too late_. The woman beamed at Korra before she walked back into the house. _Disappear. Use your earthbending. _For a moment the Avatar was seriously considering the option to hide underground. Not quick enough, though. There he was, Kassuq, standing right in front of her. Korra had rehearsed this more than fifty times in her head—none of the scenarios had managed to include this. He didn't seem surprised. She'd been sure there'd be some kind of drama: a stunned look on his face, at least, or a door-slam. Even a fight didn't sound impossible... Noatak stood riveted, eyes narrowing as if trying to remember her name, his hand dusting the imaginary dirt off the doorknob. Three years had done nothing to his face—well, maybe not nothing_._ His hair sure looked different, half of it tied into a wolf tail. Korra glued her gaze at his eye level, refusing to look at anything below his jaw. _There should be words coming out of people's mouths._

"Hi," he said. And clearly, Korra was just some girl next-door here to borrow an egg.

"Hi?" She raised a brow. He offered another bland _Hi_ and stepped out of the door, leaving it open a crack. There were people talking inside, their voice slipping out of the door subtly but still she could hear it.

Korra craned her neck, trying to look inside but his chest emerged. She cleared her throat. "Is this a bad time?"

"No. Just some friends playing Pai Sho over drinks."

It took Korra physical effort not to laugh. "You? _Friends_? Pai Sho?" she blurted out, way too amicable, and regretted immediately. He shrugged it off, which made her even more confused: this Noatak seemed so laid-back and affable it was making her bristle. "You're not surprised to see me?"

"Not really." He looked away to the front yard. "If anything, it took you longer than I expected."

And that woman's warm, soft smile emerged. "Your wife seems…nice," said Korra, unable to control the bitterness in her tone, "and _really_ beautiful." He frowned for a second, and then his face smoothed itself into a knowing beam, making her uncomfortable all over again. "Where is your brother?"

"He's out, grocery shopping. We're having dinner here with some friends." He tilted his head. "Care to join us?"

Korra snorted—politeness really wasn't a priority now. "So you expected me to come?"

"I knew you would."

Korra rubbed her aching temples. The light inside the house, escaping from the window, enveloped the porch with a drowsy, warm haze; the vague sound of laughing and chatting kept oozing out like pus from a wound, making her nauseous. "Do you want to come in?" said Noatak. It didn't sound like a question.

Korra shook her head wearily, knowing for sure she wasn't ready. "Can we talk somewhere else, somewhere more private? I know you have company but—"

This was cut off by his sudden movement. Noatak shouted something about going for a walk and shut the door. Grabbing her elbow, he almost lifted her off the porch. They started walking, side by side at first, with Korra compulsively stealing glimpses from him. She still couldn't read his face, although now that he wasn't looking at her, she did manage to get a whole view: his hair longer than hers, his skin still a shade paler than normal. Korra looked down at her own clothes and murdered a chuckle—their outfits looked nothing alike. A swap: she was wearing black, he navy blue, yet the harder she tried to stifle the laugh the more absurd this whole thing felt. She had no idea where he was taking her, and it'd come to the point where asking would just make her look stupid. There were so many questions, though. A family now, a wife, a kid, a house, friends, Pai Sho—Pai Sho! Hasty her breath grew, visible in the cold air. Several times she wanted to say something but the words all died in her throat. Besides, it was getting harder to talk. His strides were much longer—either that or she was getting weaker—and slowly Korra was left behind. Turning aside the main road, he led her into the forest. Following his steps with ridiculous resolution, Korra snatched one last glimpse of the sun before entering the woods—almost ill, it looked. Didn't even bother to sting her eyes.

* * *

By the time they stop Korra is seeing spots. Resting her hands on her lap, the Avatar stamps a boulder out of the ground and throws herself on it. A few steps away, with his arms folded across his chest, Noatak flashes a smile. She glowers, knowing perfectly well why he's gloating: three years since the last time she saw him—that's three more years of combat for her, and three more years of aging for him. And yet here they are, the younger waterbender panting violently while the older one awaits her first word, patient.

"Where the hell are we?" she says, hyperventilating.

"You wanted privacy." He unfolds his arms. "What's more private than this?"

With what's left of her pride, Korra turns round and bends some snow off a branch into ice water. A brain freeze follows.

"_Well_?" He shifts his weight. No longer feeling her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, Korra is done collecting herself, but the speech she prepared seems to have fallen out of her head somewhere along the way. "So… yeah, I'm just gonna get right to it," she starts with no idea where she's going with this. "I think I need your help with something." There's a pause. "I…uh, I want to learn how to resist bloodbending."

She does need the technique. There are more bloodbenders in the city than expected—apparently it isn't that rare a gift. Most of them had done a pretty good job hiding their identities for years. Two years after the Revolution, after most of the former Equalists finally agreed to join the Task Force, a new wave of crime began to plague the city, this time much subtler due to the deterrent named Korra. They had learned to be smarter, these post-Revolution criminals, relocating their headquarters underground in the labyrinthine sewer system. Korra had had her qualms: if she went into the Avatar State _underground_, with her friends and colleagues around... She'd never been able to bring herself to finish that thought, until one day it actually happened. It was a typical raid against an underground narcotics factory, where waterbenders extract the "essence" out of magnolia and opium. The raid was quick (with the help of the chi-blockers everything had been much faster, although Korra would never admit this in public or to herself), until one of the already captured waterbender panicked and started bloodbending everyone. He wasn't even that good. But before she could think of a plan, the entire scene had already turned from a raid into execution. Four dead, eleven seriously injured, one of whom was a young chi-blocker standing too close to her.

That was the last time she ever went underground. And now, in the middle of the forest, Korra isn't lying, but is skirting around the one thing that's been truly bothering her—it isn't the bloodbending that had caused her insomnia. It's _her_. She's all _wrong_. But she has managed to keep this burning question from even her closest friends. So no, Avatar Korra is certainly not going to ask this jackass standing in front of her.

At her words, his face remains an impenetrable riddle. The silence between them is quickly filled with her uneasiness. _Do something,_ decides Korra, and bends another boulder out of the ground right next to him. She's asking for a favor. A friendly gesture couldn't hurt. "So… you wanna take a sit or…" He sits down as Korra keeps maundering, more to herself now, "I really don't have a choice, you know? I would have asked Katara, but she passed away a month ago." Her throat tightens but she doesn't allow herself to dwell on it. "I _could_ go into the Avatar State, but we both know how _that_ ends."

Somehow they both find this amusing. The chuckles are dry but the mood is lightened up a notch. "Look, Noatak." And this is the first time that name comes out of her in three years, the sound melting into an eccentric taste. He shuffles about slightly. "I know I'm asking a lot," says Korra, "and you don't owe me anything, not to mention you have a family now... So don't feel obligated to say yes. I can always ask someone else." She can feel the prepared speech rushing back. "See, I know things got messed up between us—well, not us, there's no _us_—but I'm starting to hurt people, innocent people that I really care about." _Wait, that's not the way to persuade _him_. _"You remember Lina?" He nods. "Well, I uh… hurt her, too, by accident, when I was in the Avatar State." Korra swallows the last few words ruefully. She needs to change the subject soon or a vein in her head is going to pop.

He raises a hand to cut her off. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Come on, let's go home. I'm starving." He stretches hugely, walks away, and turns around to a Korra-shaped statue, his smile a midnight sun refusing to dip below the horizon. "You coming?"

* * *

Korra bends the boulders back into the ground. "That's it? You are not even curious why I want to learn?"

A shrug.

"So, how does this work, then?"

"I'll be worrying about the details." He gestures her and repeats, "Come on, now. Let's go home."

The way he puts it as if they've been living together forever makes Korra ill at ease, and once again reminded of the fact that he does have a family. Side by side, tracking the footprints, the Avatar and Kassuq start to walk home. Compared to the awkward chase earlier, their pace back is almost leisurely. Now, the original idea was to bring him back to the city. He's perfectly capable of camouflaging – that much is clear. But this almighty plan fell apart the moment his wife answered the door. Eventually, her curiosity gets the better of her:

"I still don't get it. So I'm staying here?"

He eyes her as if irritated to have been dragged from a contemplation. "Yes."

"But … your wife doesn't even know who I am. How are you going to explain all this?" asks Korra. "Besides, I can't stay. I've already wasted too much time finding this place; the city needs me to –" A snort cuts her off. Korra immediately shoots back a glare. "_What_?"

"The city had once magically survived your absence, for seventeen years, Avatar," he says. "It had not fallen apart then; I strongly doubt it'll meet its doom this time."

Fighting the urge to smack him on the head, Korra continues, "_Anyway._ There's just so much on the line now. I can't stay for too long, and I know it's unlikely for you to ditch your wife and kid like that." His face remains unreadable. Korra scowls, somehow veering off the point. "Speaking of which, she looks _awesome_. What's her name? Where'd you two –"

Once again she's cut off, this time by his sharp halt. "You seem awfully curious," he says with a crooked grin.

"Not curious! Just asking!" Embarrassed by her own unnecessary high pitch, she quickly collects herself. "It's called common courtesy – you might wanna look it up."

Korra turns, trips over a root, and manages to steady herself with firebending. She makes a show of walking as fast as possible, but he catches up within seconds. She hisses, slowing down a bit. "She's Tonja," says Kassuq, no amusement in his voice. "The boy is named Tullik."

This patronizing tone only riles her up some more, "What_ever_. It's not like I'll remember."

"I'm afraid you'll have to. And since you're going to live with us, you'd better come up with a name of your own."

Korra rolls her eyes so hard it gives her a headache. "Yeah, right. I'll _live_ with you." She stops. "I'm not even sure if I'm staying."

"All right, then go back."

"What?"

"I said, _go back_," he repeats, standing a few steps ahead of her, one foot on a large stone. "There's no hostel around. So unless you want to sleep outside, I suggest you go back to your precious city before wasting any more of my time."

Silence descends again, and finally Korra comes to the realization that she really hasn't thought this through. _Of course he'd built a new life, and who are you to tear him away from it_? The very thought, along with the image of that woman and her child, rolls up in her stomach and makes her queasy again as if she were back on a miserable ferry ride. So far he's been treating her with nothing but disdain, hidden smartly under that awful smile. Her hands begin to shiver inside her pockets. Clenching them into fists, the Avatar breathes deeply and forces herself to meet his eyes. "You know, it's your city, too," she starts calmly, as best she can. "Well, it _was_, before you abandoned your convictions like some cigarette butt." His bottom lip gives a twitch. It satisfies her to know that she could make an impact after all – even it's something that unnoticeable. She presses, "Have you asked about your Equalists _once _ever since I got here? Or you're just that cocky, assuming they've been doing just fine without their glorious leader?" She can feel herself coloring. "Hey, by the by, does your beautiful Tonja know about her hubby's dirty little secrets? Let me guess, to her you're just some charming fella moving back from the city, looking for a quiet little place to settle down and have a bag of babies and live happily ever after where the sun literally doesn't set and your perfect, perfect wife shits chocolate rainbows that melt into moonlight punch, and _bam_! Guess what! Ten years later, turns out that kid's a waterbender, too! What then, huh, Noatak? You're gonna teach him to 'destroy the Avatar' and 'restore balance to the world' again? You're gonna finish Daddy's dirty work?"

The words rend the stillness into pieces as a couple of polar squirrels scamper off a tree behind her. A buzzing noise follows. If it weren't for an empty stomach she'd be throwing up now. Korra waits until the nausea goes away, and finds Noatak combing his hair with one hand. For a second it seems as if he's going to applaud her, but he just grins some more.

"_Charming_, eh?" he says.

"Huh?"

He reaches out a hand, beckoning. "Move. I'm hungry."

"What?"

His hand still in the air, he sighs. "Are you _done_? Can we go now?"

Always this terrible, terrible dance. Korra bends the snow under his feet into a snake, aiming for that hand. His wrist barely moves before it freezes and shatters. But then he just keeps dodging. "Fight back, coward!" But somehow it feels familiar, and (could it be?) _correct_, for Korra to lash out without a second thought, to have him have her outmatched. If he chi-blocks... so what? Now, if she could just whack that grin off his face—

It doesn't take much effort to close in because he's not even moving. There's weariness in his eyes, and Korra starts stumbling – it doesn't hurt, not with the adrenaline blinding her sense for pain. He holds her close. "You and I ended on such frosty terms, Korra," says Amon, a smile warm throughout. Korra watches his breath forming in the air. She doesn't panic.

"The last time I did this," he says, his hand sneaking around the back of her neck, searching for something, "things did not work out so well."

Korra lets out a chuckle. "You do realize I still can't control the Avatar state, right?" A _spot_ found then unclogged. Pain pours in from there. She wheezes, "Careful now."

He nods, mock-serious. "Why am I not scared?"

Each inhalation feels like needles dancing on her spine. "Pretend all you want." Korra breathes out. Only out. "But this… this is who you are – once a killer wasp, always a killer wasp."

She finds no worry for herself – she only goes into the Avatar State when furious, and right now, no longer bewildered by his mask of hospitality, she feels somewhat more acquainted with the Noatak whose hand is crawling down her back. She returns a smile, meaning for it to be equally breezy. It comes out wry.

"It's adorable, really, you trying this on me," he says. "They always say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Thank you, Avatar. I'm truly honored."

"You got it," says Korra, ignoring the clashing sound inside her. He doesn't lose the grip, and it's starting to hurt on another level. _It's okay because you asked for it_, Korra thinks, already out of air to exhale. Inhaling again would undoubtedly lead to a coma. Shame. She wants to stay conscious for this.

The grip loosens a notch. She can breathe now, still unable move a muscle. The picture of him holding her in the woods must seem ridiculously sweet and innocent. Korra pushes the image away. "Is this my first lesson?" she asks, feeling her limbs again. "Your method of teaching, huh?"

"Not really. Consider it a preview, if you like."

"So if I stay, there's more of this?"

"I don't know," he says, leaning forward, his lips almost touching her forehead. "You tell me."

"You have a family, dude," says Korra, not entirely sure who she's warning, and gets no response.

Letting her out of the bloodbending grip but not his actual one, he says quietly, "Do you feel guilty?"

The pain recedes as quickly as it comes. Now that she can move, Korra finds herself frozen to the spot. _Quick, say something witty_.

"Go to hell."

"Which one?" he asks, tilting her head with one hand, inching closer. "I've lost track of the mistakes I've made."

But there is no regret in his eyes, only mockery. Korra flinches at this, wriggles out of his arms. "That's cute, buddy," she says pulling cold air in her lungs, and breathes out the rest: "Can we _please_ go now?"

Noatak pardons her with an after-you gesture, but then pulls her back again. "One more thing, though," he says, all teeth and sunshine. "Don't ever mention my father again."

He waits until Korra nods, and once again, they start walking home.

* * *

By the time they reach the edge of the woods, Noatak has already come up with a story for her. Apparently her name is Sinaaq, a distant relative who went to Republic University two years ago and decides to pay a visit during summer. Somewhere along his fabricating, Korra finds herself impressed by how fluently he vamps things up from scratch, as if he's known Sinaaq for all her life, and is just telling anecdotes about the girl.

"Your father died eighteen years ago. A pack of silver wolves caught him off guard on a hunting trip. You were too young to remember the whole thing," he says without a break. "Devastated, your mother took you to Republic City where my brother and I helped bring you up. You have few memories of the North Pole, and that's why you aren't accustomed to the traditional styles of Water Tribe living."

"But I _am_ accust—"

"You're closer to my brother Aluk," says Noatak ignoring her, "which, technically, is not a lie."

Korra makes a dismissive noise and chants the names glumly until they start to sound unreal. "I'm Sinaaq, Tarrlok is Aluk; there's Tonja… and you're Kassuq. _Got it_. Wait – what's your kid's name again?"

"The boy is named Tullik, ten months old," says Kassuq as they step into the sunlight again. Korra squints: the sun is even brighter than an hour ago. There are so many questions threatening to slip out. _It's OK. There's time_. She's been bloodbent enough for one day.

She tries to convince herself that it's just a token show of obedience, and that she's no longer a spoilt child. To the Avatar physical torment means little now, but she honestly isn't sure if she can take another hour alone with this man. Casting a quick glare at him, she meets his even gaze, and feels a gust of regret. _This can't be good._

Needless to say, their little "reunion" in the woods shall remain a secret. Korra quickly looks away. This place, out of the grip of modern technology, is one of those towns where everybody knows everybody. As they walk the main street Noatak keeps greeting the villagers, so affable it makes Korra's insides writhe. These people make no effort to hide their curious glances, for Korra's head-to-toe black get-up easily stands out in a sea of blue in various states of shabbiness. More than used to people staring, the Avatar weeds out the attention, noticing only the smell of food escaping from the houses as they walk through the neighborhood—the smell of a simpler time successfully lures a rumbling sound out of her stomach and an odd lurch in her heart.

She has to refocus. It's not even her hometown. Nostalgia means the end, everyone knows.

When they're on the porch again, he says, "Mind you, think twice before speaking. In fact, try silence for a change, you might find it refreshing. Leave the details to me, all right?"

This time, when he wipes the sheen of sweat on Korra's nose away with his thumbs, she doesn't flinch. His finger lingers until she gives a mechanical nod. Three knocks at the door, the sound of people talking, footsteps, and hopefully, an answer. Korra gulps thickly and holds still. _Whatever it is, I'm ready_.

This statement viciously slaps itself in the face when she's greeted by an artificial hand, the first thing she notices, and then, pink scar tissues. Starting from his chin, they shroud the entire right side of his face, invading into the hairline. Tarrlok returns her glazy stare with same astonishment.

"Look who's here, Aluk!" says Noatak with unnecessary cheeriness, "Remember Sinaaq?"

It's amazing how quickly Tarrlok collects himself. "Of course, Sinaaq... It's – been a while." Here his voice pitches high. "Come on in."

Again, she's been wrong. Korra is most certainly not ready: the smell of seaweed soup soaks in right away and for a moment it feels so ridiculously familiar her wants to cry. The inside of the house is as humble as its exterior suggests, but it's cozy and all heart. The room immediately quiets down at their entrance, and Korra is finally greeted by the source of the chatting sound, four people around a wooden table near the kitchen. One of them she's already met: Tullik the baby, the only one not staring at her, is now held by someone else. Korra unwittingly inches closer to Noatak, who is also looking around, searching.

"Where's Tonja?"

"She's preparing dinner," says Tarrlok as Tonja steps out of the kitchen at the sound, cupping her hands around an earthenware pot, unaware of Korra's presence.

"Ah… hot, ho—hot," she hisses, putting it on the table. Tarrlok clears his throat uncomfortably. "We have an extra guest—" he says, looking at Korra as if he's already forgotten her fake name. The older brother carries on, "—Sinaaq, everyone, all the way from Republic City to pay us a visit."

"A _blood_ relative, Sinaaq is," adds Noatak, putting a hand on Korra's shoulder.

She manages to hold still. There's a dimple when his face lights up like this, notices Korra as she squeezes out a smile, to which the hostess returns a much more genuine one before she adds another chair to the table. "Yeah, we met earlier today. Didn't quite get a chance to learn your name before you two ran off like that."

"Sorry. I just took some time to show her around," says Noatak. "This is Tonja. Tonja, Sinaaq."

Tonja walks across the room with a springy stride. "What a lovely surprise," she says, drying her hand on the apron. "This is the first time I've met someone from their family."

Korra shakes that hand, feeling the warmth and calluses under her fingers. "Nice to meet you," says the Avatar, trying to breathe some enthusiasm into her words by making stupid small talk. "I didn't know No-_Kassuq_ had such a beautiful wife. When did you two meet?"

Tonja squints, her expression rich and open, occasioning little wrinkles under her eyes. "We're not married," she says after a chuckle. "He's my brother-in-law." She looks back at Tarrlok, whose eyes are glued to the floor. "Aluk is my husband."

A few seconds pass before this sinks in. "You—" Glaring at Noatak, Korra finds him covering his face with one hand, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, his shoulders slightly trembling. A smirk reveals itself from under his palm. The muscles on Korra's arms twitch instinctively as she bites her lip. _Don't make a scene don't make a scene... _The Avatar compromises, punching him in the arm instead of slashing him on the neck. He doesn't wince but no longer bothers to stifle the laughter.

Among the rest, Tarrlok is the first to realize what's been going on. He sighs and sleepwalks his way to the dinner table, leaving the others utterly bewildered. He says, no emotion in his voice, "Tonja told me you had a visitor, and you two were out for a walk. She didn't mention it was _Sinaaq_." He still refuses to look at Korra, his good hand mechanically tapping the wooden one. Somehow this name sounds so venomous when he utters it. Korra gives Noatak a glower as vicious as possible, before she joins the others at the table. Right now even a sulky Tarrlok seems to be a much better company.

The older brother follows, sitting right next to her. Albeit bewildered, Tonja begins to introduce her to the other guests. The Avatar goes through the motion without making a real effort to remember their names. What's the point? She's not here to make friends, although they do look an awful lot like the folks back in the Southern Water Tribe. Konska, a lanky young man who's been holding the baby in his arms, reminds her of that shy guard named Howl. She doesn't ask any questions this time, just quietly smiles and greets them in Water Tribe fashion. Thankfully, the awkwardness begins ebbing away as the dinner starts. Burying her weariness and resentment in a plate of salmon, Korra brushes Noatak's gaze off her shoulder. Now is not the time, she can wait until later to beat him to death.

Everything tastes good when you're this tired and hungry, not to mention these are honestly the best Water Tribe dishes she's ever had. The sea prunes are a bit different here in the north. And it must be the heat that's making her eyes watery, not the sound of people chattering and laughing. Korra sniffs unnoticeably. She's been eating too fast, that's all.

A bowl of seaweed soup is put in front of her. "Slow down," comes a whisper beside her. Putting the chopsticks down dizzily, Korra looks across the table: Tarrlok is the only one silent besides her—even the baby is mumbling syllables as Tonja patiently grinds his food with a spoon. Tarrlok returns Korra's gaze with his own mournful one. Beside her, Noatak is answering another question about Sinaaq's life story.

* * *

In a sea of cate and joy, Korra's uneasiness is only equaled by Tarrlok's. Under his gaze, the Avatar feels like she's closing in on herself like a telescope, and is sure that a few minutes later she'd just blur into a blob. Meanwhile, the topic on the table travels through kingdoms of bizarreness but somehow always lands back on Sinaaq Island, which, she's sure, has something to do with Noatak's piloting.

Harder to endure is Tarrlok's sullenness right across the table: it has reached such a piercing level that Korra can no longer pretend to focus on the food. Mute since the very beginning, he hasn't smiled once at any of those made-in-Noatak-Republic-since-130 ASC anecdotes. Even his hand—the good one—speaks more than his face while the older brother goes on and on with a buoyant air: at each mention of Korra's pseudonym, it gives a twitch; at each mention of his own pseudonym, it gives a twitch; at each mention of how Aluk used to take care of Sinaaq when she was a baby—it gives a twitch.

She's been one for confrontation, Korra, perhaps a bit gauche, but never coy, because these days, power is something she has in abundance. Dribbling through her fingers (literally, sometimes), it gives her options. So, imagine how frustrating it must be for the Avatar when she finds it impossible to hold a handicapped man's mournful gaze.

At one point she's sure that a tear is about to squeeze its way out and settle in a crag underneath his eye. _Just start sobbing already_, she feels like saying, _You might as fucking well_.

A different kind of purgatory, this is. Her cheeks bulging from mouth full of food, Korra breaks first and devotes herself to eating, only cutting her eyes once at Noatak during a joke about how Sinaaq didn't stop wetting her bed until she was eight, which is punctuated by an affectionate—yet thorough—slap on her back that almost knocks the seaweed soup out of her stomach. Adding a "Wafer-thin ice, dude!" in her glower, she knees him under the table, and is rewarded by a harsh squeeze on her upper arm masked as a stroke.

"Oh spirits, what was I thinking—" says Tonja, after another fit of laughter circulating around the table, "we should crack open the Dew. I think we have a bottle left."

Her proposal wins a round of applause—even Tarrlok hmphes a tiny approval and then shifts a little. Korra has heard of it, the Rouge Dew, only from Asami. How these people could have afforded, or even have had access to such rare, expensive liquor is beyond her.

Perplexed azure meets Tonja's limpid one. "You're old enough to drink, right?" the older woman asks.

"No, I'm not" or "I don't drink much", Korra dangles between the two answers and decides to go with the latter. Too late, the words have barely reached her throat before Noatak utters a firm, jolly _Sure_.

"I don't think—" and her protest gets cut off by his hand behind her back. Busying herself in fighting a shiver back, Korra hears a voice whisper in her head mischievously, _What_ _the hell_._ Can't get any worse than this._

Her brows knit at the taste, too sweet, but then what does she know about wine, or any of this, really? _One drink and that's it_, she says to herself. There's a chuckle in her head. So, six drinks later, having experienced the slight yet obligatory queasiness, Avatar Korra reaches another realm, where she can't remember a time in her life when she didn't know Konska, Aruq, Tusaq, baby Tullik and Tonja the Water Tribe lady. As for the other two, well, she still doesn't care for them much. Thankfully that doesn't last long: by 9 p.m., Tarrlok's deadpan face has turned into a squishy, fluffy blur that Korra relishes so dearly.

However, even as her breath smoothes and her light hazes, Korra still can't shake _the other one_ off her right side, but at least she doesn't care that much now. She doesn't feel wasted. Just tired. All she wanted was a meal perfectly quiet and simple, preferably followed by an asking-what-century-this-is-after-you-wake-up kind of sleep. She could curl up in a fetal ball and pass out right then and there, but _no_—weighing on her right shoulder, Noatak's occasional glimpses are actually making her slowly incline towards him, all the time wide-awake.

Another wave of laughter sidesteps her and she greets it, obligated. _Why are you really here, Avatar? What is this spell he has on you_? Lacking a definition for the nauseating rumblings that appears in her lower abdomen whenever she makes eye contact with him, Korra decides, in a bizarre surge of hilarity, to name it after Lord Deer—an obnoxious spirit that won't stop harassing her. Every time she's in that world, at peace and ready for some good old sublimation, every single time, it would jump out of nowhere and start yapping, getting in her way of becoming a better Avatar. So yes, he, Noatak, definitely belongs to the same category. He _is_ the Lord fucking Deer, decides Korra, snorting some noodles out.

Fact: the Avatar is secretly a huge fan of second opinions. Wants advice, needs them, and, more often than not, takes joy in disobeying them. Korra does not know this yet, but it's something else that has dragged her into this. She's resigned to it, prepared for it. Therefore the trip has been a decided-upon suicide. She doesn't even like him. So he's better than her at waterbending. So she's never beaten him without going nuts and raising hell. So he perhaps sort of maybe is good-looking? So he has no wife. So he told her not to choke to death on her food. So when he laughs he has a dimple at which Korra wants to inappropriately poke. _So what_, essentially he's still an awful human being, and if three years ago Tarrlok hadn't lied about their childhood, then Noatak is most definitely a mass of unfortunate mental characteristics.

_Let's not forget, Avatar, just a few hours ago, he was toying with your emotions about him having a family as if enjoying a puppet show. Just a few hours ago, he was bloodbending you. _She tries to distract herself by joining the conversation, which has taken yet another mysterious turn and somehow Korra finds herself knee-deep in an argument about aura, of all things. They say that some kind of intensely negative cosmic energy is orbiting Korra—_cosmic_, really, from these people—and the worst part is that she couldn't agree more.

"_Great_," says Korra, meaning for that word to be sincere but somehow it just comes out bitter, which, accidently, proves their point. "Yup, that's me."

A pat on her back, Korra leans back on a whim. She doesn't know why but right now it seems _important _to crush his hand until it becomes one with her chair.

"Oh come on, you guys. She's lovely," says Tonja in a lilting northern accent. "Don't listen to them, Sinaaq."

The Avatar smiles in triumph, not at the compliment, but at the tiniest hiss of pain beside her. It sounds more beautiful than jazz. Although it's odd that he would just let her do that—shouldn't he be pinching her on the flank or something right now? _That's for the bed wetting story, assface_. She frees his hand, feeling herself miraculously sobering up a bit. Meanwhile, Aruq, a bearded man who is entombed in the chair from which he seems unable to remove himself, starts talking about setting Korra up with his son Konska, who is, unfortunately, sitting right next to her. And—unless she's seriously hammered—there's a glimpse of sneer on Tarrlok's face. She'd almost forgotten his presence, the meaning of which contains nothing but passing the subject onto someone else whenever he's expected to speak. Hmph is all he's said or ever is to say.

She's almost grateful when Noatak interrupts Aruq and leads the topic back to the subset of an earlier one, which is also initiated by Aruq about how a young man should get his character built up by joining the army. Beside her, Konska's red up to his hairline, close to tears now. For the fourteenth (could be the seventeenth) time Korra tells herself, this is the last drink. And for the fifteenth time she downs it amid the laughter. Fact: this is not, after all, that terrible a night.

She offers to help Tonja clean up after the last guest leaves the house. There has been a "sorry my dad's such an ass" look in Konska's eyes and she accepts it with a semi-grin. Now Tonja looks back at her as if she's insane. "Are you kidding? Look at yourself, you can barely stand up straight!" she says, the baby fast asleep in her arms, "Not to mention you're the guest."

She glances around for the father and, failing to find him, turns to her brother-in-law instead. "Hey, do you think we should clean up the attic for Sinaaq or…"

"It's too cold up there," says Noatak, sidestepping Korra with plates piling up in his hands. "She sleeps in my room."

Of course. Not "Sinaaq, would you like to sleep in my room?" _She sleeps in my room_. Korra, scratching an imaginary itchy spot on the back of her neck, is too far gone to protest. It's been a day in a twisted wonderland. A dark line should be drawn underneath this sorry journey: not due to any particular effort on her part, but by means of the entirely random collision of one person with another, an accident is happening and he has three names. She still doesn't know what to call him. Emerging from the kitchen, the accident holds her upper arm and leads her on the stairs. With his help she makes her way up in a floating manner and collapses on the warm fur. It's still sunny outside.

"Can't…" she mutters.

"Can't what?" He pulls off her boots, drawing the blanket up to her chest.

"Can' sleep, the sun, too bright."

She cracks open an eye. Good gracious his hair is long, and tickling her face. With what's left of her conscious she tugs at it. There may have been a kiss; it may have been on her forehead or nose or eyelid, or lips; he may have said good night or go to sleep. And if she's just lucky enough, none of these has ever happened. It's the alcohol, the Avatar tells herself, before she falls into the merciful, dreamless sleep.

* * *

It is bright as ever when Korra, stabbed by a hangover, wakes up in different clothing. A dark blue dress, clean and comfortable, which means it can't be hers – all her things already had new things breeding on them before she got here. Trying hard not to imagine who helped her change, she sits up groaning. Asami was right: the Avatar can't hold her liquor any more than she can drive a Satomobile.

Now that she's come to realize whose bed she's been sleeping on, the headache intensifies a notch. _Either for me or against me_, she mumbles, addressing the daylight, or rather, the day.

In the bathroom, Korra is almost crushed by a chain of small tragedies. First she trips over the dress that is too long for her, and to keep balance she punches two balls of flame, setting the shower curtain on fire. After she finally puts it out, a non-Avatar stares back at her in the mirror. No grace to speak of. During shower, she has a hard time convincing herself that coming here wasn't a mistake, and that everything, albeit eccentric, is going to work out for the best. It's such a weak point to stand by, but she's determined to stay. Noatak is a shit, sure, but he also said yes to her ridiculous request without asking any questions. As for Tarrlok, he seems to have decided upon ignoring her altogether. Well, two can play the silence game – she's not going to break first. Do not stick your nose into their business, she reminds herself before the hot water runs out. You're here to learn, not to be the net over them.

For she had stopped being a girl when they weren't watching. Ten minutes later, a stay-in-line Avatar is downstairs, still feeling the harsh beat in her head. Even her own footsteps sound too loud.

"Good afternoon, Sinaaq," says Noatak smiling, in that smile is his guarantee that this will be anything but a good afternoon – of course he's the first one she sees in her most miserable. Korra glances at the clock: half past three, she's slept for fifteen hours straight.

Rubbing her eyes, she sits by the table. "Where is everybody?"

"Out," he says, putting a yellow teacup with a chip in front of her, "shopping for the trip to the carnival. Elderberry tea?"

"_Ew_. No, thanks. Wait – this place has a carnival?"

He pours her some tea anyway.

"I don't need this, I need something to eat – what carnival?"

"I'm afraid you can't eat anything for now."

"Why not?" asks Korra as she realizes the answer – training today, most likely the kind that requires an empty stomach. "You know what? Don't even answer that," she says glumly, bringing her face close to the cup. "By the way, if shit could shit its shit would probably tell you this smells worse than its own armpit."

"It's for your hangover." He sits across the table, pushes the teacup towards her. "_Drink_."

"Dude, I'm tired of asking. _What carnival_?" Upon the first sip, a grimace. "Tastes like shit, too, by the way."

"The nine-day carnival in Pakak. In the north we celebrate summer solstice," says Noatak patiently. "We talked about this last night. You don't remember?"

A fragment of conversation, free from its alcoholic context, floats up and gives Korra a chill. "Not really," she says, trying to gloss over her surprise at the name of Unalaq's town. How could she have forgotten all about it? It's the same carnival she had been going to since she was a child, until two years ago.

"Pakak the capital?" asks Korra calmly, wondering if he knows about her kinship with Unalaq. "Isn't that like two hundred miles away?"

"Hence the word _trip_."

"Well then, by Water Tribe calendar–" she says, doing the math with a headache. "I'd have to master it in… ten days. Think you can manage that?"

"Oh, Korra." He places his hands on the table and stands up, looking thoroughly amused. "Korra, Korra, Korra."

"Is that a yes?"

This, the third private conversation they've had since her arrival, is the same as the first two: Korra constantly wondering if fun is being made of her, Noatak oddly charged with optimism, vetoing whatever she says with enviable ease. He refills her cup and walks upstairs. "Finish your tea. We leave in three minutes."

"Hello? Helleew!" Leaning backwards, she shouts at the empty staircase, "Fine! But I'm taking that as a yes! Ten days, tops!"

Korra smiles. She's already incensed but she smiles. At least it's the first time in months that she's been able to cease fidgeting without being drunk. For there's something new to learn – the Avatar is in her wheelhouse. Fully aware of the immorality of bloodbending itself, a small part of her feels grateful that she doesn't have to learn it to resist it. He is, voluntarily and as always, the bad guy in the deal. And for at least a week, she will be focusing on something other than the world outside Aipalovik, _Korra's _world, of enemies, press conferences, Task Force meetings. The way she sees it, when you shift the mores of the prior world shift also. Not warped. _Shifted_. Therefore, here in this piss-poor village, there will be no judging eyes on her spine, no burning guilt: _Why can't I control the Avatar state_, _what is wrong with me_?

Although there are still one more question tickling her throat. _What happened to Tarrlok's face_? Alone at the table, Korra fends off this flash of curiosity by giving the room a thorough view. The sun has the house in its hands. Ribbons of light filter through the blinds, warming the table and her face, extending further over Korra, beyond the wooden floor, touching the arc above the kitchen door. It is when she sees the roses carved on the beam that Korra recognizes the exuberant details, not of the interior but of the house itself. There is something richly incongruous about this place – the living room, albeit furnished in simple style, gives out a vibe of tragic, deserted beauty. She can vaguely tell that colors were everywhere before they faded in purposeful oblivion. Whoever this house belongs to seems to have made a conscious effort for everything to be as austere as possible just so it would draw less attention. There is a five-bar fireplace with no photos on it. The only decoration is a tapestry, two kois chasing each other, the pattern around which has grown brownish, barely recognizable – you have to wonder how unchanged the life here must be when something this ancient is able to hold its place on the wall.

Pushing the thought away and herself up, the Avatar reviews the none-of-your-business speech as her teacher, dressed in black, emerges from upstairs. Now the colors of their clothes swap again, back to what they had been three years ago.

Once outside, the sunlight seems to be actually weighing on her eyelids. Behind her, Noatak locks the door and then tosses her a heavy cloak, which she holds high above her head like a standard. "Please don't tell me we're going back into the woods," grunts Korra. "Why can't I just learn here in the front yard? There's nobody around."

He walks past her. "Come on. Try and keep up."

* * *

The first half of their journey is rarely punctuated by words. Her first impression of this village, after the particularly tiresome search, is wrong. To fully appreciate a place like Aipalovik you'd have to walk its streets. Really _walk_ it. At various points along the way, houses fall in and out of rural gentrification, unsystematic but in a fun way. And yet it's the passing faces that make this walk a lot less tedious. Korra has forgotten what it feels like to be greeted by a complete stranger. Back in the White Lotus Compound, everybody knows each other, and in Republic City, where people don't even know their next-door neighbors, there simply is no room for hospitality – only in places like this can you nod back to a woman fixing the pulley on the clothesline, a lad selling homemade seal jerky while chattering with his pal. At this distance, looking at the high-latitude peachiness on their cheeks and the familiar, chiseled bone structure, Korra senses the ancestry from which she has come from, a communion she cannot feel on the streets of Republic City.

As their walk gathers speed, Korra recognizes this to be the very road they had veered off yesterday. "Wait." She stops, pointing at another direction. "We should make a turn here."

Without looking back, Noatak keeps on going. Korra jogs up to him. "Hey! Where are you taking me?"

"Relax. You'll see."

Whatever force that has driven her out of the city is now compelling her to follow him. Thousands of miles away, her family and friends are probably worrying sick. "Just so we're clear," says Korra, "I'm here to learn how to _resist_ bloodbending. _That_ and that only. In other words, no more fooling around, no more –" Here she flushes maroon. "– groping or whatever the hell it is."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm not kidding, jackass!"

"No you are not," he says with sudden solemnity. "And as far as we're on the subject of ground rules, let's also be clear that I'm the teacher here. Therefore, you _will_ talk to me in a socially acceptable manner in which you have addressed all the other teachers who have passed their knowledge and expertise on you out of sheer obligation. In other words, no more jackasses, no more shits or whatever the hell it is."

Korra has been rolling her eyes at every term after "ground rules", and by the time he finishes that sentence her eyes are starting to hurt. But instead of bickering, she concedes a gloomy nod. For too long, large sections of the Avatar's persona have been constructed on the principle that rules are not for her. Pre-Amon it had been years of sneaking out of the compound; during Amon, from the Air Temple Island to the Arena. Post-Amon, this compulsive need to rebel has somehow cooled down a shade. Instead she has learned to prepare a face as needed. It's a procedure that requires constant dedication and practice. Out in public she's been functioning in the "right" way. But once alone, Korra always sees how she could have acted the other way around and it would make no difference whatsoever. In the eyes of the press, the Avatar is still famed for being wayward™.

She has failed to describe this substantial loneliness to anyone. What is she going to say? That she's experiencing some sort of Avatar impersonality? How could she know that Mako, Bolin and Asami aren't acting the same way? She has simply to see it as the cost of being a grown-up. Meanwhile, coming to a village all the way across the planet where no one knows her name, walking with a man whose masked face is still on the wanted list, allowing herself to be cast in the pupil role, she feels existentially light. It's odd, really, how people act more like themselves next to someone they barely know.

He must have noticed her unusual obedience. "I had a rather interesting conversation with my brother last night," he says, his tone softening, "after you went to bed."

"Oh yeah?" She snorts. "Let me guess: he's not overly fond of me staying here?"

He gives a light chuckle that pushes the matter beyond doubt. Korra kicks a medium-sized stone far away, converting irritation into bending. "Whatever. Tell him I'll be out of his house in ten days."

"The thing you need to know about my brother," says Noatak, cutting to the left at an intersection, "is that he means well –"

"_Right_."

"Now, what did we just agree upon?"

This time Korra does glare at him. "_Fine_. Go on."

"As you can see, he's still in the maze of past rooms," says Noatak, vaguely gesturing his own face, "and unfortunately, he does have a rather strong opinion about your intention to learn."

There's a brief silence that compels Korra to unleash what she's been holding.

"What happened to his face?" she asks, hating herself now. "I thought you were a healer."

So how long was that? Twenty minutes?

"You really want to know?" He slows his pace a bit, looking a lot more guileless than yesterday – whatever they talked about last night must have much to do with it. But she's not sure if she wants this honesty. She'd rather squabble with him about trivial, irrelevant things.

Korra looks pained. "No – yeah – not really... OK, just give it to me in a nutshell. I want the water-cooled version."

At this he smiles a mournful smile.

"What?"

"Trust me, soon you'll find it amusing," he says, and then tells in shorthand how they spent a week on an island after he saved Tarrlok's life, how they got rescued by a fishing boat from Fire Nation. Just that. Only that. With no emotions to speak of. "… our old neighbors did not recognize us. And we've been living in the old family house ever since."

This is said in a gnomic voice as if he's been nuncupating a memoir. Noatak, story finished, falls back in silence as they stop in front of an abandoned barn.

Korra slowly walks towards the locked double doors, and throws herself on a large stone in a vanquished position: head hung, eyes to the floor. You can't un-hear something like this. Yesterday when she knocked on the door she was filled only with her own troubles, her mind loosened by exhaustion, her eyes stunned by the proximity of an old foe, her body craving the blessed sleep. And now the situation has taken yet another ugly turn. Why this guilt again? Why always this crushing guilt?

Beside her, Noatak opens the doors. She follows him mechanically inside. Even for an abandoned place the barn looks pathetic. It's hexagonal, the roof broken, letting sunlight scissor through in slices. Heaps and heaps of hay on the sloping floor make it quite impossible to choose where to stand. Everything smells stale.

"It could use a cleanout," says Noatak and turns to Korra. Under the spotlights of dancing dust rimming about him, his ears appear translucent; his look remains opaque.

"Why?" says Korra dreamily, her mind elsewhere, "and more importantly – _why_?"

"A clear mind requires a neutral space," he says, reaching into the air in a demiurgic manner, as if trying to create a "neutral space" out of sheer will. Korra recognizes that voice. It has a visual of itself: resonant and unquestionable, delivered from the abdomen with little help from the throat. It takes her mind off Tarrlok effectively.

"Should I be writing this down or—" She raises a brow, making an effort to look uninterested.

"Remind me: what was the deal again?" He glances at Korra and, after receiving the resigned look, continues, "A virtual place where things – be that learning or contemplating – can be done in emptiness."

"So… a cavity," says Korra. "That's why we're not in the forest or your front yard."

"Exactly. Now, I assume you are apprised of the 'training' situation in our younger days?"

"You mean your 'hunting trips'?" Korra quotes with her fingers unnecessarily, and then her eyes widen. "Oh no no no no, that's – I'm not learning bloodbending, if that's what you're implying –"

He holds up a finger to silence her. "I see you have trouble recognizing a yes-no question, so I'll try and talk in terms you will understand." He takes off his coat, throws it on a pile of hay and starts shaking the mud off his boots. "Rest assured that I am most certainly not teaching you the technique itself," says Noatak slowly as if talking to a foreigner, "not because you have asked so, but because I have failed to see the point of doing that."

Korra shifts her weight to another foot, waiting to be provoked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means it's not something you learn," he says in a peculiar tone. Could that be _pride_ on his face? "Unlike freezing water into ice, the ability to bloodbend is, and I quote, _something you have_."

This is exactly what she expects to hear. The Avatar is happily offended – no one in the White Lotus or in the city has ever said to her, "You can't learn this because you don't have what it takes." It's almost refreshing to have the channel untrammeled, _free_.

She feigns exasperation. "_Good_, like I care."

"Shall we?" He rolls up his sleeves, walks to the corner and, to her surprise, drags out a wheelbarrow.

"Are you serious?" says Korra. "We only have ten days and you wanna spend the whole time cleaning up this fairyland of crap?"

"It's not about physical training. Not today."

"But you said no eating."

"Ah, _that_ – well, people simply behave better when famished," he says, beckoning her to follow. "Feel free to be of assistance any time now. Use your bending, if you like."

Korra snaps her fingers. A ball of flame dances in her palm.

"What do you think you are –" Noatak turns around to a blazing mound of hay. "Extinguish it, _now_!"

"You just said _use your bending_," impersonates Korra. "It'd take days to clean all this out – you have to admit, this is much easier." She shrugs, archly innocent. "But hey, what do I know? I'm just some hungry idiot who happens to know how to shoot fire balls."

Sighing, Noatak tries to pull some water out of thin air. But it's too dry, and way too late – the flames are already licking his feet. He jumps backwards and stumbles over a lurking rake. Bending over, Korra laughs for the first time in months. It feels strange physically, as though her lips have forgotten how to stretch into the angle that defines genuine joy.

"Oh man – you rusty."

"Korra – I'm not joking – you'll set the whole place on fire!" he booms, balancing himself on one foot while putting out his boot with bare hands.

"_Believe_ me, they don't call me Avatar for nothing." She reaches out a hand, and the fire around them dies down at once, forming a somewhat ritualistic circle without touching the wooden walls.

He does not look unimpressed, nor does he look in awe.

"What, no burning hatred for the evilness of firebending?" says Korra and immediately throws her hands up at his steely glance. "Kidding. Sheesh." And then, a hiss, "Ugh... guess I owe you a coat."

He waves this off. Korra bends two boulders from the ground, and makes a mock-polite gesture for him to sit first. With one hand she uses airbending to guild the thick smoke through a hole on the roof and then sits next to him. It's warm and quiet now, only the sound of cracking.

_The thing you need to know about my brother is that he means well_. Unanchored of their earlier conversation, his words meander into Korra's head. So do I, she thinks. _The Avatar always means well_. But she knows herself well enough: not much of a desired savior, more like an assigned prompter. She doesn't mean for anything to be like this, but it is like this – Avatar Korra, saying and always saying the wrong things, helping and always helping in the wrong way. Just as three years ago, when she opened the cell door and found them that patrol boat, she had not meant to tell Amon that you should take your brother and don't ever come back. Korra had meant to tell him that if you stay we can find a way to fix this city, _together_. She had meant to say, _Please don't leave_.

"Was it my fault?" she whispers and feels his gaze. A once mysterious and now painful presence. A few seconds later he puts a hand on her shoulder. She looks at him, and as Noatak nears her he blurs a little – maybe it's the heat, or the water in her eyes, or just the smell of hay burning, creating a somnolent atmosphere without the toxic smoke. These elements, _her_ elements. When did they become a nightmare? He kisses her ever so lightly on the hair. Pulls her closer by the shoulder. She begins to cry. The tears are sharp and quick, for she's not particularly sad – Korra has made a habit of doing this every now and then just so the memory spasms would pass faster. A stranger could come in right now to this strange scene – Korra resting her head on his shoulder, her hands reaching out in a peculiar angle, controlling the flames encircling them – and think her insane. Korra cannot give an account of why it's happening, either. She does not get Tarrlok. To comprehend his choice she'd have to sit down with one of them taking her through the history of the past forty years.

"It seems that," says Noatak finally, "you have come here searching for the island where a ship was wrecked. Am I correct?"

Her answer is a loud sniff.

"But it's not your ship to lose, Korra. Nor are you the ship itself. _And_ you are not the wave that had wrecked it," he says as the cleansing fire around them slowly comes to its end. "Earlier when I mentioned the training I'd been through as a child, my intention was not to make you feel incompetent. What I had meant to say was: once you decided to learn anything about bloodbending, even if it's, as you said, _resisting and that only_, you cannot go back. It is not something you can switch on and off at will, and I cannot foresee the consequences of this action. Therefore, I'm asking you one more time – now look at me in the eye and see I'm serious –" Korra pulls away. He wipes her tears off with his sleeve, and then tilts her chin up with a hand. "– are you certain that you want to be involved?"

Korra smiles tragically at that word. _Involved_. These days she hears it everywhere. The last time was when Asami said to her father through one of those little receivers in jail, "Mako and I are involved, Dad. You'll just have to deal with that." Behind the glass, Korra had seen the desperation on Hiroshi's face, but what could he have done about it? After all, the word itself sounds so righteous, so beautiful, as if it's such a great situation to be in, as if it's in our choice to get tangled in other people's webs, merging into each other. But honestly, Korra reflects, it's just exhausting. Involved was exactly what happened when she and Naga jumped on the ship from the South Pole to Republic City, when she challenged Amon on the radio and confronted Tarrlok in his office. She had done all those things on a whim, and now she has to face the consequences, for whether she likes it or not, becoming uninvolved, at this point, is simply impossible.

Biting her lips, she nods firmly. "I need to know how to deal with bloodbending without going into the Avatar State." And then she makes a face. "I'm sure you'll be a better teacher than your old man. Less dead animals, at least."

His jaw tightens. Korra tips her head back. "Sorry – it just got too intense for a second. Had to cut it down."

"All right, then." He stands up. "Help me clean out the ashes, would you?"

She does so by airbending. He was right: the barn, hollow and cavernous now, presents itself uncontaminated, as what she had felt in the spirit world. Korra crosses her arms and closes her eyes, indulging in being part of _a neutral place_ like this.

"I have to admit," she says, nudging him with her elbow, "this isn't terrible. Can we start now?"

"Like I said, today is not about physical training," he says and leans against the dusty doorframe, eyeing her in a funny way. "Come here."

She takes a step away from him.

"Here means _closer_."

"Close _enough_." She stretches out an arm straight, her fingertip barely touching his chest. "See? At an arm's length, literally."

Looking away and breathing deeply, he grabs her wrist. As he pulls her close Korra yells, "I said no groping!"

He clenches his jaw again, this time wearily, and then puts a hand softly on her stomach. "Would you call this groping?"

"Depends. What are you doing?"

"We still have some time left before dinner." His hand inches up, to which Korra responds by actually jumping. "Calm down," he says frowning. "You're breathing all wrong."

"Doubt that." This Korra says with confidence. "If I were I wouldn't be able to firebend."

"Indeed." He raises an eyebrow expertly. "That's the problem. How long have you been breathing like this?"

"You mean through my lungs like a normal human being?"

"I mean through your chest like an amateur," he says. "You're too tense. Relax."

Korra loosens up a bit reluctantly. She does not see the problem – she's breathing the exact way she's been told by her firebending teacher, and it works just fine.

"Have you ever heard of Dan Tian?" he asks, his hand now resting a few inches below her bellybutton.

Korra narrows her eyes, searching hard for the tedious chi-points Katara has taught her. "Wait, just give me a second, I can get this – ha! It's a chi-point about two fingers behind the navel."

"Well, at least you're right about half of it," he says. "It's not just one point, but rather a complex assembly of chi-points. And right now I'm not touching any of them – they locate deep in your core. What you said, two fingers behind the navel, is where Guan Yuan locates. In short, Dan Tian is where all the chi in your body is cultivated. _The root of life_, I'm sure you've heard."

"Not really. They don't teach you _that_ in the compound. Just... general healer stuff, like which channel to unblock so you can ease the pain."

He shakes his head perceptibly. "I can't say I'm surprised, and judging by the way you breathe I suppose they had failed to do a thorough job of –"

"Hey!" protests Korra but then can't think of anything to say. "That's – I'm breathing fine! Master Zoru said –"

"Do you always feel tired after firebending? Sore and empty as if someone had pumped the air out of your body?"

"Well..." she falters, irritated because he's right.

"And you think it's normal because Master Zoru has told you that he felt the same way."

She purses her lips. "So? Every firebender does, it's a demanding art. Not that _you_'d understand."

"Firebending itself is not laborious, no more so than any other forms of bending. You feel drained because you've been drawing energy from the wrong source," he says, ignoring her pout. "Most people breathe through their chests, as you do, and yet by doing that you use at most one third of the lung capacity. Therefore the breaths are shallow and hasty. It is unfortunate, to say the least – so much wasted potential. The energy is limited, and there is only so much stored in one's body in a lifetime. The way you're breathing is consuming instead of recycling – not to mention restoring."

"So you're saying I can get better at firebending – and, live _longer_, just by breathing through Dan Tian?"

"Not _through_ Dantian. _From_ Dantian," corrects Noatak, adding some pressure to his palm. "And not just firebending. Now: keep relaxing, and focus your energy down here. Feel the cycle."

And yet the more pressure he puts on his hand the more tensed she gets. How can she relax when he's this close? It's been like this since yesterday: every time he touches a part of her, she feels somehow driven to back away and restyle that part to shape, without a specific idea of what the "ideal shape" should be. All her life the Avatar has been confident of her body, not just because of the compliments, but also because she knows how athletic she is compared to girls her age. But around him she's strained, her body and her mind.

Korra imagines it would be hard to top how uncomfortable this is. But he manages by stepping away and holding her from behind, one hand still on her belly, the other on her hip. Squirming, she adopts an anxious voice: "Sorry about your coat."

"Focus."

Korra clears her throat, her eyes fixed upon her own visible breath in the air. All she's been doing is breathing, and yet it feels more challenging than airbending.

"I can feel you _pressing_ your chi down," he says. "Do not force it. Remember: the energy belongs there – you're simply returning something you have borrowed from your own body."

"Easy for you to say. You've been doing this the right way since what, ten years old?"

He chuckles, his breath tickling her neck. "Seven. But close enough."

Then he presses his upper body against her back. Korra hisses, "Whoa there, that's not what –"

"Follow my lead." This voice again. His heartbeat is indeed remarkably slower than hers, his chest barely heaving. The breathing itself strikes her as conceptual, deep and resonating just like his voice. At this distance she can actually tell the heat inside his body travelling in a steady circle. _Stop holding in your stomach_, she hears him say. Is she, though? Only when she breathes out again does she realize she's been doing exactly that. She's relaxing in such a tentative, shivery way. Is this how ordinary girls feel all the time? Girls who can't do eight somersaults in a row or win a man twice their size at arm-wrestling. Is this what it feels like to be _normal_, to be acutely and painfully aware of your stomach that is somehow never flat enough? Is he teaching her or judging her?

Apparently he has sensed her uneasiness intensifying again. "You're doing great," he says, and then, quieter: _Stop fighting_.

Now she wishes he hadn't said that last part. Her eyes shut, Korra swallows hard and clenches her fingers around the sides of Tonja's dress. _OK,_ says an anthropomorphized voice that has settled in her heated abdomen. Yet somehow, out there where the breathing continues in the freezing air, her answer comes out to be a strange sound at the back of her throat. Does he know – in this closeness – about the electric whoosh that shoots through her body and rests in her belly when he says that? Korra fancies herself peaceful from the outside, pinpricks of sweats emerging on her forehead. _Not physical my ass_, she considers saying. But instead, she starts talking the kind of talk you employ to stave off the embarrassing physical desire. She speaks of his former Equalists, most of whom have chosen to join the reformed Task Force. He has not asked but she keeps gabbling, her belly warmer and warmer:

"… basically there are three different branches. Of course the council's pretty pissed, not just because of the chi-blockers in the Task Force, mostly because I went over their head to Zuko two years ago, so now we answer directly and exclusively to the United Nation instead of the five benders in the City Hall. And, well, it's sort of an awkward situation: among the five of them only Tenzin is still talking to me, and I can tell he's _not_ happy about it."

Translation: every strand of me feels weakened and the bones in my knees are melting. I was not fighting. I have stopped fighting long time ago. Why would you say something like that?

"I'm sorry to hear that," he replies thinly, taking his hands off her and backing away. "I'm sure you've made the right decisions."

"You think?" says Korra rapidly and turns to face him. "That's – I'm not being sarcastic, I'm actually asking."

"Does it matter what I think?"

"Guess not," says Korra, sucking her front teeth, feeling her legs again. "It's just… I've been trying so hard not to step on any toes, but apparently these days no matter what you do there always will be this, this opposing voice. Benders think I'm all about sucking up to non-benders and vice versa. I feel like I'm letting everyone down."

Already she can hear the transoceanic northern accent in her voice, dipped in salty water, touched by harsh wind. Shame. Just when she's finally done losing the southern one. Now they stand face-to-face, and Korra has stopped trying not to stare – what's the point of doing something impossible? He's also been examining her and, after she's done complaining, gives a flavorless smile. Korra follows his eyes with her own as they rove, waiting for him to respond in kind, something like what Mako has said, _You need to stop trying to please everyone,_ or as Bolin would put it, _Oh well, you tried, and that's what matters, right_? Tenzin would probably say something about duty demanding sacrifice... So, in what comforting way, wonders Korra, would the former Equalists' leader say about this Avatar?

"Good start today. Keep practicing." He looks away. "We should go home now. They'll be worrying if we're late for dinner."

She blinks. Sighs. "Yeah, you're probably right."

They do not move.

There's a difficult pause, in which Korra winces inside and sees clearly she does not want to go back. Not yet. Not to his old house. Not to Republic City. The suppressed desire does not bother to make an appointment – it marches up her head and makes itself at home. At which point she realizes in horror that her body is taking actions before her mind weighs up the man and the _consequences_. Determined like someone with a deathwish, she steps on his feet and kisses him. Full, burly, front-ways-on. This kiss, as explicit as a kiss can be, is delivered neither from the past nor to the future. It's now and she feels known. This fascinates Korra for a second, as she grabs his hair and feels the lips against hers return the fever, that she can no longer gauge her own choice.

* * *

It feels a bit off at first—the adrenaline rush, you have to give it a few seconds. Only just aware of herself, Korra tugs at his hair and doesn't care if it hurts. As he draws back a little with a hiss, she presses on and catches the warm smell coming from inside his clothes. This lingers for a few seconds before she realizes it can't be him. It's this day—the sunlit dust in the barn; the spicy fragrance of firs set against the white backdrop of northern lands. It's simple, the leader of the Revolution can't remind you of a brisk summer afternoon. But scents do not lie, and this Noatak smells of Aipalovik. Is that why she's doing this? So she can also dip her toes in the possibility of another life?

If this is what _involved_ means, wonders Korra as her heart sharply knocks against her chest, then you should have just stayed in the damn city. And yet, even as her mind is saying _step out yourself and look_, Korra cannot move. Taken out of its context, the kiss itself is too perfect: it carries a kind of fictional air that she wishes she could wallow in and stretch longer, like in those romantic novels Asami had lent her where two people would merge into the sunset after something like this. But all around her things have been queerer than novels, with the consequences a novel doesn't have to deal with after the denouement. Here it's first-person, present tense. Am, being, in-volv-ed. Caught between two v's. Unable to retreat.

And when he breaks away, it is with a tiny sigh as if she's taken something away from him. She feels a bit victorious after all, her mind shutting out the possibility that it's been too long since someone touched him like this. Now Noatak gazes over her head rested against his shoulder, patient because by her bunched fists he can tell how embarrassed she is. It's all he could do to ignore the abominable heat in his trousers. _What is pure will always be pure_, he recites, and gives in to the silence, one hand in her hair, his feet in a dull ache—she's still stepping on them. He doesn't move. The sun too stays still for her. And finally, with her hair slipping out of his fingers, her eyes downcast, she takes a pigeon step back, walks away. He follows until she gets lost at a crossroads. As he walks up, she glances away with eyes that have seen recent tears. Despite opting for a life of deception, Noatak has not yet lost all poetry, for he still finds himself saddened by moments like this. And, without wanting to, he traces the salt path of a tear with his thumb, leans down, and brushes a small kiss on her upper lip like a late footnote.

She closes her eyes but doesn't kiss back.

He steps on the right route, over which he had walked countless times when he was a child. If back then someone had asked him what the purest definition of memory was, the boy would say, _It's a very old road leading to a very old barn that you go to every time you feel like crying and don't want people to see_. He's walking it now, with each fresh crunch of snow raising the sound of past crunches, and Korra following at an arm's length. No more, no less.


	2. On Memories and Being Just

On Memories and Being Just

/*/

Tarrlok barely misses his bending. But in times like this—sitting on the porch, hunched over a cup of cold tea, a blanket on his lap—he wishes he could still freeze snow into ice so he can shoot it at someone. An hour ago he and Tonja came back to an empty house. Plonking the bags of groceries on the kitchen floor, he marched straight to the porch and has been waiting since then. Now he taps his foot, his throat still dry from the argument last night—it was the kind of fight that starts with one thing and breaks into inexhaustible pieces. Every gripe and conflicting belief, every micro detail of uninvited yet carefully categorized memories:

The explosion that had acquired a dazzling beauty: white light, feeling terrified in the air and liberated under water. The first things he woke up to after the three-day unconsciousness: a broad jaw and icy eyes, seen with double vision and an omnipresent pain. Those and a searing resentment that had struck Tarrlok himself as perversely ungrateful. According to Noatak, he owes his life to a rare, ancient skill known as "demolishing reconstruction", mastered only by healers extraordinaire. Which is to say, before Tarrlok came to he had been dead for a good while. Which is to say, in less than an hour Noatak had to actually kill him first in order to put the broken bones back in place, fix all the internal injuries, all the while making sure his blood was running warm, his heart pumping. Tarrlok didn't ask about the details. In fact he didn't speak to Noatak the whole time they were on that island. Until this day he still refuses to believe this healing method that only exists in stories. It sounds like something only a lunatic would do, although the technique itself is founded upon an irrefutable principle: you can't kill a dead man.

Solid point. Is that really the case, though? This was also brought up last night, in suppressed voices so they wouldn't wake up Korra, Tonja and the baby. _Why would I lie about something like that?_ Noatak had hissed. _How many times have I told you—I couldn't find the rest of your arm! And if you could just let me finish the job and heal your f–_

Tarrlok has never let him finish that sentence. Last night was no exception. They kept on going, veering off from realms of the past and sliding back to the present: …_and what? So she can go back and bring back an entire army _after_ she learns how to deal with bloodbending?—_here Tarrlok thumped his chest with his good hand—_I thought you were the smart one!_

And it was Noatak's turn to play dumb. He's no fool, Tarrlok. In the past three years he's always had an inkling that Noatak has been expecting something: he's shown no interest in having a family or moving out of the old house; been switching jobs every two months. No anger, no sign of defeat. As if the world had simply stopped happening for him. Sometimes Tarrlok wonders if Noatak is staying here out of guilt. But how do you even begin to mention something like this? Hey, brother, are you only living in the house of haunted crap because you're afraid that I'll "put on a glove" again? By the way, are you ever going to give me my bending back?

It was the same last night. Ever since their childhood: always this invisible, colossal wall, cutting through conversations with meaningless substitutes for what they really want to say. And when you divide history into infinite parts as they did, you'll find yourself stuck in a perpetual time loop, just as they got nowhere on the vital points: how to deal with Korra, how to keep the whole thing away from Tonja. And by the time she got woken up by a wailing Tullik, it was already eight in the morning. The last thing he whispered to Noatak before they left for the market was: _I know my opinion's not the fucking word of saints, but it still counts. Don't take her anywhere until I come back—once you cross the line that's the fucking end to it._

Apparently there's no line and no fucking end to it. Alone on the porch and in a slight vibration, Tarrlok grips tightly the blanket that Tonja, perplexed by this smoldering rage, has brought out for him. Things have been adding up in front of his eyes—it's _Korra_. His brother has been waiting for the Avatar. Why he's been so sure she'd come that he's practically done nothing in three years Tarrlok cannot penetrate. He only knows that right now he feels the old Tarrloky impulse to cause blunt hurt with deftly crafted words. In the past hour he's worked up a collection of witty opening lines for the upcoming conversation. And yet, when they emerge at the end of the street—silent and with a distance just close enough to suggest earlier intimacy—Tarrlok combusts. Abandoning sarcasm, he leaps to his feet.

"Been out?" he bellows and begins striding, the blanket still in his hand. Korra comes to a halt as Noatak keeps walking. Tarrlok marches right past him, shoulders clashing. "_You_!" He stares at Korra. "Where have you been?"

Returning, Noatak puts a hand on him. "Easy, now. We just went for—"

"Am I talking to you?" He bats off that hand, his eyes still acutely fixed on the girl, who is looking at Noatak sheepishly. Tarrlok presses on in the face of her wincing, "Had a nice afternoon? Enjoyed our humble village?"

"We went for a walk," she repeats. Almost inaudible. This is not the Avatar Tarrlok had known. For all her prowess and chutzpah, the one quality she's oozing now is vulnerability. Wrapped in a big cloak she seems to be an assembly of breakable parts in front of a crushing confrontation. A flare of guilt passes, but before he can utter another word, Noatak steps in between them and looks at him in such a way that he feels compelled to step back.

"Don't, make, a scene." He speaks quietly from the corner of his lips, smiling at something behind Tarrlok: a confused neighbor walking past their house. Tarrlok nods politely, turns back fuming.

"Shall we?" says Noatak gesturing at the house.

"No we shan't," articulates Tarrlok. "For once we're gonna talk this out. Here. _Now_."

"Haven't we done enough of that for one day?" says Noatak, gazing over Tarrlok idly. "At least we can wait after dinner. She hasn't been eating since last night."

"Oh._ Ooh_! And whose fault was _that_?" Tarrlok leans aside so he can address Korra hiding behind. "Are we—are we on strike now? Is that what's happening?"

She looks slightly repelled. "Watch it, pal. You sure you wanna stand between me and food?"

Tarrlok looks at her. Looks at Noatak. Looks at her.

"I don't know _what_ this is"—he sticks out a finger, slowly enclosing two faces in one circle—"and honestly, I don't care. But I do have a _life_ here, Avatar, and a family, unlike a certain someone else…"

"_Unnn_clench," says Korra over him. "Ten days and I'm out of your _life_"—air quote with a grimace—"so you can go to your stupid carnival with your cute-ass _family_. Don't talk like I'm dying to stay here."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Tarrlok shifts back to Noatak staring at his own feet. "Is that what he'd promised you? That's just _adorable_…"

"Gah—you know what?" Korra shoves Noatak away, and comes close to Tarrlok's face with a look similar to what he'd once seen from behind the desk. "I'm gonna rip all this bullshit innuendo out of your throat and shove it so far up your ass you'll be able to feel the stupidity in you whole system! I come and go whenever and _wherever_ I want. And if you can't deal with it then the least you could do is stop blaming everything on your brother!"

This is said with shut eyes and elaborate gestures as if she's trying to convince a bigger audience. Tarrlok shakes his head at Noatak, a lilt in his voice. "I see you've still got it. One day—that's _got_ to be some kind of record."

With a burning fist Korra lunges at him. This, the kind of move obviously for show, hangs in the air awaiting its intervention. Noatak obliges on cue, catching her arm and throwing himself between them again. But it's not the outburst that strikes Tarrlok a step back—it's her fire, light yellow with a greenish hue, hissing ghastly as if alive.

"What _was_ that?" Tarrlok stares at her now quenched fist and then at his brother. "Did y—did you see it?" And then his eyes widen. "I knew it! I _knew_ I wasn't hallucinating that night in my office—your fire _is_ different!"

Her wrist still in Noatak's grasp, the Avatar thrusts him a finger. "You bet your ass it is! Keep talking to me like that, next time it's gonna be all over your_face_—" At the actual sight of Tarrlok she stops abruptly. He sees regret paint in wild strokes all over her. "That's—I didn't—"

Finality interferes.

"All right, enough with the drama. You," says Noatak and brings her hand down with a gentle tug, "go back inside, ask Tonja to rustle up something for you to eat. Just—don't spoil your appetite for dinner, okay?"

Of all the things he's been hearing so far, including Korra's threat, this softly voiced settle somehow strikes Tarrlok as the most offensive. He holds the blanket to his chest so he can't throw a punch.

"_So_"—once she's in the house, Noatak turns back with a different face—"that fell apart quickly." Tarrlok opens his mouth but only manages to insert a murmur. "Are you proud of yourself?"

"Frankly," says Tarrlok matching his tone, "a little bit. Now, if we're done with the nonsense—what's the deal here?"

"What deal?"

Swaying like a drunk sailor, Tarrlok sighs. "I'm so sick of talking in circles. She's already gone—the _deal_, Noatak! What do _you_ want out of this?"

With spread arms Noatak displays integrity. "I honestly just want to teach her."

"Fine… keep it all to yourself." He laughs desperately, walks away. "I'm _done_, utterly, thoroughly, unconditionally—"

"And _yet_—" Noatak raises a finger.

Tarrlok spins around, brandishing the blanket. "Of course I'm not done—exactly how blind do you think I am? Ten days later that girl's proposing to you!"

"That'd be awfully flattering. Unconventional. But flattering."

"Is that what this is all about? You've been waiting for her as in… waiting for _her_."

"It depends. Does it make you feel easier to think I do everything with an unspeakable motive?" asks Noatak picking his nails. "Well, then, you caught me: I am head over heels in love with the Avatar."

"Keep joking." Tarrlok closes his eyes for a beat. "I have to say, the plot is getting a little unoriginal. Also the whole 'oh no he's my enemy what do I do' theme, it's sub-theatre: a few days later she's starting to feel as if someone has grabbed her hair, stuck rolls of firecrackers in her ears and blown two bleeding holes in that little head of hers, and then she's thinking the world presents itself clear for the first time, that she herself and her old friends have been nothing but little teenage shits while the larger community is being suppressed, oppressed and every kind of pressed by some totalitarian bending scum and it's your job—_yours_, a _blood_bender's job to help her fix it! You seriously expect me not to see where it goes? I used to be in the same business and you're not the only one good at it—now look where it got us!"

Mid-speech Noatak begins to pinch his nose, his shoulders rolling, and by the time Tarrlok finishes, he seems to be struggling between noise and tears. He makes his choice: it's the kind of laugh that breaks into several parts, each one with a different pitch. He makes an effort to apologize by shaking his head, but then bends over into a nasty relapse. He seems to be adopting a different face; everything screams glee expect for his eyes, as if he's been bullied into this hilarity. Tarrlok waits with his arms folded and finds himself, to his surprise, unwilling to stop this. Partly because he's tired, partly because he's forty, but mostly because he too has heard himself.

It goes on for a while. Now Noatak is coughing, holding both sleeves to his eyes as a much younger man would.

"Done?"

"Yes, yes… oh—really, nothing funny about what you said," says Noatak wiping his eyes, "but the way you said it… makes me think of how we used to say these simple things but with different words as though refinement was the solution that could help get us further… oh"—he smiles in the same way a kid does when given red wine—"sorry. I'm sorry. You were right: it's quite liberating, speaking like this. And I honestly don't know how to talk you out of these doubts—they are reasonable as they were beautifully uttered."

"I only said them because I have two eyes and two ears," says Tarrlok. "It's hardly deduction. I wish I were being paranoid over these things; I wish for once you're being kind just because you are kind. But that's what you do, Noa: you simmer and pour these thoughts in people's skulls… and for someone who couldn't even go through his fifteenth birthday without divulging—"

"Still hanging on to that theory, aren't we?"

"Okay…" Sighing, Tarrlok adjusts his wooden fingers. "That on the back burner—suppose it was all just the spirits' stab at some black comedy… The fact is I'd do the same if I were you—about the Avatar. And believe it or not, I know what it is to seek; I know that dryness—it must have been difficult for you to live with this persistent thirst while I've been moving on."

His brother looks peacefully engrossed.

"I'd ask what happened between you and that girl," continues Tarrlok, "today _and_ three years ago—but then you'll just banter your way out of it." He gazes out the front yard. "I've always thought _I_ was the one neck-high in the same old quagmire. As it turns out I'm not the most attached after all. So go ahead, charm the belt off that girl's pants, have her have you _teach_ her—run off into the sunset, for all I care. But just so we're clear"—he looks back at Noatak without blinking—"I have a good life now, Noa, where the biggest trauma lies in re-carpeting and faucet-fixing instead of the epic battle of what we used to be and what we should be. Perhaps this _is_ an insignificant life, to people who don't know what it means to finally have someone waiting for you at home. But I hang on to it—fucking cherish it. So if you try anything, _anything_, that would put _my_ wife and child in any kind of danger—"

"Whoa!" interrupts Noatak throwing his hands in the air, looking appalled. "Wait a second—and let's skip the part where you call me homeless—am I really such a monster to you?"

"I didn't call you ho—that's not what I…" Tarrlok scratches his jaw, moderating his tone a bit. "I'm just saying: if you weren't so damn secretive about everything…"

A pause. "Would it make you feel better," says Noatak slowly, "if you come with us to the barn—"

He shrinks.

"—so you can see for yourself that what we're doing is strictly _training_," adds Noatak, "that I have absolutely no agenda. Get your head out of the gutter."

"I don't know. It's not really my part to… and I don't think Tonja would—"

A whipping sound follows.

"Really?" Tarrlok raises a brow.

"Sorry, it was right there. Hey, I'm only offering an earnest proposal because clearly my own brother doesn't trust me. It's _your_ decision."

"Still… I'm not quite on good terms with that birdish little thing. She's _that_ age—the idea of ideology means more to her than the ideology itself."

"She's more sophisticated than people give her credit for."

"Meaning?"

"She's precise but doesn't know it. I find us thinking alike at times."

"Marvelous, go say that to her and see what happens… How long do you think it'll take before she gets sucked into your cult-classic radicalism crap? Not that I give a damn… It's just not my world anymore."

"My cult-clas—" snorts Noatak, dangerously brushing past another fit. "Oh you _are_ funny. Look, I'm not getting into _this_ again, but you can't deny how rare her talent is—I've never seen someone learn this fast; even I couldn't get the gist of Dan Tian breathing in an hour—"

"That's what you two did today?"

"Yes," says Noatak impatiently, "but there's also something deeply wrong with her—"

"Wasn't that something _you_?"

"Stop, cutting me, off," he says. "Now: if she doesn't learn how to control this power soon, it could be a threat to all, including the people you do give a damn about."

This silences Tarrlok for a while. "No shit she's dangerous," he muses. "At least three years ago she was just cocky, which in a weird way sort of matched her ego. But now with _that_ kind of insecurity? I'm surprised she hasn't blown up yet."

"That's why earlier you shouldn't have addressed her so harshly. Powerful people respond to power, Tarrlok, not force—you should know the difference by now," says Noatak stately. "And as far as I'm concerned, we can trust her to keep our whereabouts to herself—it seems to me that you've forgotten who had freed us in the first place."

Still dubious, Tarrlok gives a reluctant grunt. "So, all in all, you're helping her because you actually care? Why didn't you just say so last night?"

"That's because I don't," he says at once, looking away from the house. "Couldn't care less. What _you_ said: it's just nice to have a reason to get out of bed."

At this Tarrlok subsides. Noatak gives him a punch on the arm. "Think it over, would you? No hurry."

He hums, turns to leave.

"And uh—Tarrlok?"

He turns back to his brother standing there in all that broad-shouldered, black-tunicked glory. "In extremely rare cases," says Noatak, "the color of the flame can be influenced by the mental state of the firebender. The more unstable, the colder the color."

"_Huh_… what kind of mental state?"

"Could be anything—the level of instability, or an unanalyzable constant such as the aptitude itself. It's a bit more complex than merely an equation. A mutation, if you like."

"And if that's the case, the colder the color—"

"The more fatal, yes."

"You said _mutation_, but isn't it permanent in some cases? Hey, remember that neighbor that used to come to our old igloo at night? Haliq… Kaliq?"

"Very close. Akluitok."

"Sure, you freak… Remember when he used to tell those spooky stories of blue fire?"

"Not as vividly as you do, I'm sure. You've always been spellbound by the tale of Princess Azula."

"But then you grow up. I know how much _you_ hated them, though."

"How very prejudiced of me. But then you grow up."

"And you know this now because…"

A long pause. Noatak rubs his temple, either retrieving or repelling something.

"Should I say I'm simply a man of the world?"

"Charming." Tarrlok walks away.

"It's—" Turning back, he watches Noatak's face pass rapidly through a cringe into humorous regret. "Not important. Second-order conviction, brother. You know how it is."

"Right." Tarrlok squints. "Except I don't. I guess some of us aren't blessed with that extra layer that makes our aura so tragically ravishing."

"Please stop."

"There is no such thing as second-order conviction. Ambition is ambition, Noa. Nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm only ashamed that I'm not ashamed of it. Will it make me less of a person to you?"

"Don't worry, you're not that important." He turns to leave, turns back once more. "Noa."

"Mmm?"

"Clearly you've made your choice, so what I'm about to say won't make a dent whatsoever," says Tarrlok, "but I wish you could somehow step out and see the way you look at that girl. So at least you'll try to stop lying to yourself."

"Mmm."

"One last thing: obviously you're being your fifteen-year-old self again, which means—"

"A purist unpurified."

"—a purist unpurified. So, no judging, but a fair tip: just because there are more reasons to sin, doesn't make the sin smaller."

"Duly noted." A pause. "And by implications I'm to assume that you won't come with us tomorrow?"

"Oh I'm coming all right."

"Beautiful. And. Since we're warning now, I too feel obligated to mention that if I were you," says Noatak grinning, "I _really_ wouldn't talk to her like that again."

* * *

How many moves, figures Korra as Noatak brings down her hand—that is, if this were a sophisticated game like Pai Sho—how many moves to get from where I am to _not_ _being_ _wrong_? She makes a show of walking away; supposedly bitching about Tarrlok. But a few steps past the clean sheets and clothes hanging in the yard, reality catches up and presses on her shoulders, so does the horrendous possibility that she has been, as explicitly accused, a puppet.

Stopping on the porch with a shaking hand, Korra breathes deeply. Twenty seconds later, Sinaaq from RepublicCity is in the kitchen. There had been a brief thought of telling Tonja the truth, but when she turns to Korra and asks if she could help check on Tullik, anger vanishes. Korra stares at Tullik sitting in his crib, with his watery eyes and chubby arms—all of a sudden she can see where Tarrlok's jittery nerves have come from.

And he stares right back. Babies, they blink less.

Korra sits on the couch with a loud rumble from her stomach. She wonders what she looks like in the eyes of Tullik, who cannot yet pronounce the word Avatar. Before Korra came to the City she'd been told that the Avatars were guardians watching over their people. But in fact she's never felt herself "gazing down from high above". If anything, it's been more like walking under deep, silent water, while people move above her head, living. No one can hear you.

Almost unwittingly, Korra reaches a finger to Tullik. His fingers are so tiny he uses both hands just to fully grab it. It seems a bit rude sitting here while Tonja does all the cooking, but Tullik wouldn't let go of her. Groaning, Korra picks him up and, in fear of her clumsiness, holds him with both arms.

It turns out to be a mistake, going back into the kitchen, because when Tonja asks what Aluk has been angry about all afternoon, she can't come up with anything that would make sense. Exhausting the terms like "family stuff", Korra makes a desperate move by asking Tonja how she and Aluk met each other, and is then surprised that she doesn't hate what comes next—a bland, short story, very un-councilman. As Tonja speaks, Korra tries her best to seek a refracted image of a devoted, protective father. _So, in this face, his new life?_ She fails to see a changed Tarrlok, but by looking at her, Korra is untimely reminded of her own mother. It's one of those executive observations from her gut: the breeze of immediate safety from certain people.

"So I guess you can say I ended up with a man who doesn't need me to shrink into his hand." This is how she ends the telling—the last thing Korra needs to hear after an afternoon like this. Bent on not being a crybaby for the rest of the day, she looks away. Too late. Tonja, story finished, turns back to a watery eyed young lady. She's experienced at detecting wounds, and in this twenty-year-old she sees pain at once—the theatrical kind that places itself on every girl this age. Tonja smiles thinly at this and starts rubbing salt evenly into a fish. She's no stranger to this look. Ten years ago she was in the exact same place. And yet, there is also something else about this girl. Something so colossal it feels like an actual journey beyond her possible years. Tonja can't put her finger on it, but at the sight of Sinaaq holding the baby so tight like some kind of end's drawing nigh, she just has to brush the girl's nose with a wet knuckle and ask, "Whacha thinkin'?"

"Nothing," says Korra with a feline flinch. "Just a little light-headed. Low blood sugar and all."

"Here." Tonja stuffs a piece of zucchini bread in her mouth without asking. Korra makes a faint protest but then widen her eyes.

"Dis is sho good!"

"I know," says Tonja without looking flattered. "So: boy trouble?"

Going over this later, Korra can't really account for her reaction. Maybe it's exactly the frankness of this question that has impelled her to spill to a woman she barely knows.

"How can you tell," begins Korra, uneasy, "if you're being… used, by someone you can't really trust?"

"Ah—so it _is_ boy trouble. I was just taking a wild guess."

Recalling their fake kinship, Korra winces as if in physical pain. "Not exactly… a boy."

"Oh no," says Tonja, swirling a spoon through the soup. "Girl trouble?"

Korra tries to smile.

"Nah. It's not—it's got nothing to do with relationship."

Tonja raises a brow and Korra regrets having opened her mouth, but equally it doesn't seem right to stop now.

"Fine… let's say it's boy trouble," says softened Korra with brash voice. "Doesn't matter. How can you tell, then?"

"You can't." Tonja shrugs and tips her head back. "Oh, wait a second… Yeah, you can't."

Honesty is a strange place to be in, but for Korra, being able to talk like this certainly sits in the pros column of life. How is Tonja pulling this off, though?

"You're kind of awesome, you know?" says Korra and watches Tullik spit out a little bubble. "It's like you're in a whole different ball game."

"First of all," says Tonja severely, "I am _extremely_ awesome" —both chuckle— "but it's really a prize at the end line, only happens after you're forced out of the beauty game."

"You're still very pretty. I didn't—I mean yes, you're beautiful and all but that's not what I'm—I don't really know how to… ugh." Korra wonders at herself: why does honesty sounds so dumb when it's her?

But Tonja takes this incoherent compliment gladly and gracefully. "Thank you. I think I get what you're trying to say—you're not looking at me. You're looking at the people I've been _through_… I know, I know, you city kids are all about—what's it called now? Free female consciousness?" Korra groans. "When I was your age I thought I hated everyone," continues Tonja, "but really I was just pissed at myself for being pissed. And the fact is later you get to walk through real people, boys, mothers, kids, what have you… and, they sort of happen _in _you. So I guess my point here is that you meet yourself in them also, and one day you just feel—I don't know, heavier, even if you've already walked out of them."

"I see," tries Korra, up floating something Katara has said. "A shelter, then, in each other?"

"Nice." Tonja nudges her on the arm. "Matter of what you want to give and whether you want to be given, is all it is. Drink the tea, drink the sea… Get a boy, get a girl… just get going!"

"But I think… it's such hard work," falters Korra, "to walk through them and _give_ out of the part of yourself that actually _can_ give, instead of the part that just wants to be given—I don't think I have the heart for that. How could you feel heavier, if you can't even find that line in yourself?"

This conversation, albeit short, is the most surreal thing ever happened in this kitchen. They fall into a brief silence, in which Korra buries her nose in Tullik's neck and takes in his bready baby smell. Tonja stares at her for a few seconds. So the kid has wit—good-hearted wit, not the defensive sharpness she displayed at the dinner table last night.

"Precise kid," says Tonja practically to herself.

She doesn't see that the words have already plunged Korra headlong into the wet, soft earth of memory. Now, just as one must go back to Fire Lord Ozai's "teaching method" in order to comprehend Fire Lord Zuko's odd aversion for plastic surgery, so the night on Memorial Island is essential to the understanding of why Korra has been drawn all the way from Republic City to this very kitchen in Aipalovik. For there had been _Amon and the Avatar_ for one night before there is _Korra and Noatak_ in front of a barn, where a child with cold intellect had wept and practiced in secret until he fully mastered something called demolishing reconstruction all by himself—so fuck _you_, Tarrlok, and—

we must now rewind a little, to the night before Shuang Jiang, three years ago, for there had been plenty of _involvement_ also. In short, Amon had stepped on a nerve by showing up alone to her challenge, paralyzing her with two jabs, and—here the loop was drawn—trying to scare her some more with moves that seemed horrendous to Korra and necessary to himself. That night things happened in third-person, past tense. Caught between her panic (People had been good to her, weak for her, not anymore.); his absentmindedness (Which is more fundamental to human condition? Instincts, roots, or convictions?); and a mutual astonishment (Why is her fire blue in shock?). Eventually Korra bit him on the neck—so, to answer his earlier wonder: _instinct_ came first in this particular case. For Korra, it was only natural to respond power in the only language she knew how to speak: physicality. For Amon, this time he had failed to ignore the abominable heat in his trousers. At what seemed returned and smoldering passion, Korra felt a bit victorious after all, her mind shutting out the simple possibility that it'd been too long since someone had touched him like that—a touch of years of pent-up sexual energy to both involved. It wasn't long before their lips got involved, and involved were the other body parts—hard to go further than that, at least for one night.

It was over as quickly as it had begun. Because Tarrlok, so very Tarrlokishly we now know, had decided to borrow an airship from Bei Fong and search the island. Even though no one found out about what happened, the two involved spent the next few days in horror, for different reasons but with the same coping method, a fondest in all history: denial. The week after Shuang Jiang passed peacefully. _Can the clear mind clear everything out_? Korra answered herself by gluing to the tried and tested formula: training. Hair every which way. Clothes dripping. Water and earth and fire in turn. The Avatar doesn't do regret. Fury is so much easier.

Tough business. Meanwhile, as Amon saw it, some of us have the time to cringe at insignificant fuck-ups, while some of us have serious plans to make, a night to forget, and a stadium to blow up. _What is pure will always be pure_, he kept reciting what he'd jotted down ten years ago—the last sentence of his first speech, words he'd believed could protect him and his Equalists, fundamentally, unwaveringly and eventually, from people like that girl…

And yet over the ensuing month, something inexplicable began happening to both in denial, the sequela of removing a memory forcefully and with terrible skills. It left little pieces in them—not in their minds, but _from _and purely_ of _the bodies. And by the time they realized it, these details—remnants of scents, moans and touches in the velveteen darkness—leavened by memories, worsened by restraint, were already impossible to purge out of their systems.

It grew wilder as they kept discovering more and more of each other on themselves, until the physical necessity became too acute to bear. Just like that the deal was off. The next two weeks, during the tournament, were the moistest, stickiest and busiest fourteen days of their lives. One was touching himself with the kind of frequency and devotion that could easily put his seventeen-year-old self to shame. And the other, well, had no such problem. Things weren't things but triggers now: every piece of information on the radio and in the newspapers, every tiniest voice detected in paranoia, on the street, during training, at strategy meetings… It became science for him—fleshly, riotous science—searching and calculating from his memory the rigidity of her nipples that had fitted so properly in his mouth; cold marble floor against intense warmth and yielding curves; the fullness of her lower lip and the wetness of the upper, joined in a silky pout, demanding instead of asking to be tasted. So… yes, he'd just do that. _Apparently that's just who I am now_. A kisser, to whom every set of lips I've ever kissed was only for practice so I can kiss you in a point-making kind of way. And yes, at this moment, I maintain the brutal awareness of the world external to those lips—I just don't want to be part of it anymore.

* * *

Soon, Amon realized that he wasn't in the game of being forgiven, that his own conviction was revenging on him, throwing shame at him. Such shame! He felt taunted—indeed you end up becoming yourself. Whereas Korra, wherever she was, whatever she was doing, would find herself knee-deep in a game called Which Alternative Universe. The rule was simple: pick one; enter it; perform the Ritual of Solace; exit it covered in sweat and guilt.

Sex, at least the idea of it, had long been a problem for her. But never in these universes. _Good morning, citizens of Republic City… It's time for this city to stop worshiping bending athletes as if they were heroes…_ This penetrated Korra's thick training uniform, sent her imagination way back into her bedroom in the White Lotus Compound, where in a filmy vision she found herself dressed in the kind of underwear she had accidentally seen in a magazine under Bolin's bed, as she was spotted by a predatory-stepped figure who was taking off his mask slowly and then demanding her to close her eyes, _again_. He smelled like… his voice. Korra, lacking a name for this synaesthetic feeling, was at a nonplus. But in these scenarios, he always _knew_ what he was doing. And this time he was rough—_rougher_—and she fluttering-lidded. He was talking, his voice slightly muffled by the mask, the orders terse, the spasms of hurt mellifluous. It was so very wrong and lurid, the actual _vision_ of being told what to do and letting herself do it (!). _On my knees. Bite your shoulder. Harder. Harder. Harder._

She could feel the bleak humor in the gap between her intentions and actions. And now she heard herself speaking in City Hall. She remembered being angry about something. It all seemed hazy.

So, it would appear that a clear mind couldn't clear everything out, and what is pure wouldn't always be pure, after all. _I'm going after Amon!_ It was in this unclearness that Korra pursued him in a waterspout, with Mako yelling something she couldn't hear. And it was in this impurity that Amon found himself waterbending for the first time in years. Stay away, further, back, out, out, out! And then: _You four retrieve the Avatar; do not underestimate her_. Do not do not do not oh thank spirits you did. He gave chase, melodramatic, absentminded. He simply could not follow into the woods.

But despite the intensity of the desire unspeakable, Amon did well following his plan. It'd been two days since they set foot on the Air Temple Island, and he'd already found her bedroom about the only place he could bear to be now. He couldn't bring himself to step out, lest he should be seen in such a state. Where his subordinates held their tongues and thought the whole bedroom-occupying situation might be some kind of eccentric power statement, Amon could be found working twenty hours a day, just so he couldn't find the time to rifle through her things like an obsessed, pimple-headed boy. The irony of him voluntarily squatting in a girl's bedroom did not enter his mind. Instead, something in the ritual of it—going through his speech over and over, imagining hunting her down and taking her bending away in front of the entire city after the Equalist government was established—hugely calmed him.

The second night on the island, they told him the councilman had woken up. 2 a.m., 15 November 170ASC, the brothers were mask-to-face for the first time since their final split eighteen years ago. Tarrlok didn't look surprised after Amon wiped off the make-up with his bare hand. He looked at Noatak for a good five minutes. He said, very slowly:

"Go fuck yourself."

Amon pulled over a chair and sat on it backwards—he thought of his fifteenth birthday dinner, where the idea of running away to Republic City had struck him for the first time while he was sitting in this exact same position, next to the exact same person. He then tried, in hoarse voice, to explain that what he'd been doing was a great project, higher than himself, higher than Tarrlok. _It is not my place to start or stop this_, he said. _I have only been helping where I can, with what I have, to correct the creators' mistakes_. _It is quite clear what an abomination I am to you at this moment, but the simple fact, brother, is that things are getting out of hand.…_

_Please_, Amon had said. _I need your help_.

This time Tarrlok didn't hesitate. "Go fuck yourself."

All right, then. Leaving him alone in the attic, Amon sat down on Korra's bed and tried to convert the wrath—at everyone, not least of all himself—into words:

_You people live an orgy of deception, head-first, entering this filthy pit with the substantial equivalent of power, automatically filed under The Gifted; upon adulthood, gracing the unfortunate lot with magnificence, purpose destined, each and every step paved beforehand. You walk this. You keep walking, until reaching the edge of a precipice. Then you peer over, glimpsing at a city that has been catching all kinds of disease for the last two decades: the delusion of peace created by Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang a fundamental source of infection, politicians its jovial carriers building castles in the air. Blind, or rather, blinded. They couldn't see because they do not wish to, also because there is no need for them to see. Not yet! They would most certainly be the last to know. The real war, the one where a dramatic U-turn had been steered by modern technology, the one where cruel decisions are being made, the one with living and breathing calculations of detonation, casualty and strategy, goes on miles above your lobotomized little head. …_

It went on and on. And, going through it later, he found the awfulness of the "speech" inexplicable—who was he even trying to convince? With high-level Dan Tian breathing, he adopted a calm face, his stomach enjoying an inverse love affair with shame and hormone, taking what little pleasure he could from the fact that the Avatar did appear terrified before she ran into the woods. She was just afraid, wasn't she? Had there been a moment, then?—

—she must have used her eyes, the color of which he could no longer tell. _They are blue. Blue is not a color_. With clenched fists in his hair, Amon recalled a river cutting through the village, thawed only during that brief window between late July and early August. That river leads to an ocean; the ocean is a color; the color is her eyes. Outside the doors of this bedroom he was a leader that despised power, a clueless big brother. But inside here, burying his face in her pillow, he felt like Noatak from Aipalovik.

* * *

Now, imagine you had met a man, to whom you'd lost your virginity after a move of panic; whose face you'd never seen but who had smelled like his voice, talked the way he walked, and moved in absoluteness; whose touches had been harsh and continuous on your skin and whose lips had tasted like a dark Tuesday morning when everyone is asleep and you're the only one up for training just because how alive firebending makes you feel; to which sensations you had in the following weeks touched yourself in all possible ways a seventeen-year-old could think of; a man whose belief, rooted against everything you'd ever been taught, had slowly crept up your veins to the back of your retinas and imposed an odd hue on the things you saw—a feeling you'd never tell your friends because it'd be much easier for them to believe that you were the same girl who could be beaten but never defeated nor compromised; because how could you explain that strangely pleasurable twinge of un-selfing, and the fact that you had allowed words like_ whatever road presents itself, we shall take, for True Equality is neither a myth among_ _the proletariat nor a Subject of Passion; for it is pseudo multiplicity that has been the veil of deeply corrupted governments; for bending is not a gift from the spirits but an impurity that can and will be cleansed…_ nonsense like this, to actually wander in the backrooms of your head, and that even if they still made no horse sense, you somehow found the idea of questioning not unendurable: what if bending had indeed got in the way of things like medical and military development?—but still, a guy whose words you knew, in your gut of guts, should never be trusted, because one day you found that when Bolin and Mako argued that being a bender was not a label of guilt but an identity of nature, you had not offered the usual assent by nodding vigorously, but had instead looked at Asami to see if she was offended—anyway, imagine a man like this all of a sudden turned out to be a bloodbender, sharing the same heritage of which you'd been so proud, coming from the same tribe whose chief was your own uncle—a man like this was now holding the only airbenders left in custody, a mentor on whose shoulder you'd cried, three kids upon whose smiles you'd secretly planted your own nebulous idea of parenthood, a woman who was not your mother but to whom you'd once mentioned those embarrassing dreams and received no judgment whatsoever, imagine all this, and you'd probably have the vaguest idea as to how Avatar Korra had felt when she saw Amon—with whom all the aforementioned things had indeed occurred—stand on that stage, tell the same fake story of his fake scars with his fake passion to a very real, very enchanted crowd.

* * *

They were running on the wall. Amon stayed where he was, gripping the sides of his pants. _That_ was just plain stupid—so stupid he suspected for a second there was a next step awaiting him. There was something moronically courageous, and yet, so _true_ it made him feel inferior, not because she could run on the wall and was now shooting fireballs, but simply because she wasn't wearing a mask.

He told his people to stay back, and waited for a second. The feeling was peculiar: ashamed, excited, eased—_eased_! He breathed out, quivering as if he hadn't exhaled in half an hour. And it finally became clear to him that she wasn't the thing that had been holding his sanity to ransom—it'd been the secret itself, for eighteen years, weighting his heart with never knowing when the world built on a lie would suddenly topple.

Without wanting to, I've established myself a god in front of a god. And there can only be one of us standing.

Amon waited some more, idly dodging Mako's attack, watching her free the airbenders one by one, and once again, sensing her heart thumping against her ribs. Why was he always waterbending whenever she was around? There was shouting off the stage—who would walk away from a fight like this?—but he heard nothing.

It was about time and it was time: she looked at him, this time he held those eyes. He was calm now, and truly still. The world waited as Korra turned to Tenzin, who was quite close to exploding, and asked, "Where's Pema?"

Amon heard himself answer, not knowing why, "They are in prison, both safe."

"Was I talking to you, asshole?" She turned back but her eyes went straight over his shoulder, and then, "Guys, go find Pema and take them out of here. I've got this."

"Yeah… that's _not_ going to happen," said Mako. But Korra brushed this right off. All her friends took her visible shaking as a reaction to Amon's intention of ridding the world of airbending. They did not know the source of this excessive anger. Over the last month Avatar Korra had changed—a slow montage to some sort of gauzy, hypnotizing music even in her own head—her clothes had changed, her entire way of talking and seeing had changed all because of a liar, who now looked so together. So together! Her mind justly screwed loose, Korra couldn't account for why she was suddenly in front of Amon, and—as was told to her later—grabbing the back of his neck, punching him full in the throat with the kind of strength that sent him in the actual air.

The sound of something tearing apart. Looking down, she saw in her hand half of his hood, a tuft of his hair, and the mask. People were hissing now, at again the sight of their leader's burnt face, as well as the Avatar's wry one. Those standing on the stage, Equalists or not, were utterly bemused by this last move, so slow for Amon, so clumsy for Korra—even an average fighter could have easily ducked that thump. So what _was_ that?

Someone called her name. Korra turned back to Mako and Tenzin.

"Back off," she cracked. "This is my fight." The way she said "fight", as if it were a word blazing out a crater, compelled both of them a step back. Ikki was crying now. Korra shut her eyes. Dropped the mask. Stomped on it. It didn't break dramatically as expected. She kicked it off the stage.

Another commotion, in which Amon slowly "picked himself up" (there is a reason these clichés of combat exist), coughing violently and clasping his hand around his throat as he did so. He shook his head like he'd just had four shots in a row, as if to say, _Boy, that one kinda stung_. His voice, constricted by the punch, sounded comical—

"That's the only one you get." Amon took a graceful step back, accepting a huge cheer, and inclined his head. "So."

"At least let the kids go."

Licking the exposed part of his teeth, Amon smiled.

"OK, then." Korra smiled. "Tell those idiots to stay back. Let's go, you and me, pretty boy."

"My people won't be a problem."

"Well actually they won't _be_ your people anymore after I'm done kicking your balls up in your fucking throat but what_ever_ shithead; you're going down you hear me? _Down!_"

She was bellowing slogans now. The swearing policy for Korra—at least when Tenzin was around—had always been strict: you don't talk genitals in front of children, you just don't. But to this the airbender gave acquiescence. Gathering the kids behind, Tenzin and Mako stepped aside. The winner-take-all deal was quite evident now. Amon touched his tucked upper lip, somehow very aware of its purposeful ugliness. He couldn't recall whether he had put on make-up the night they were together, for he had only bothered to remember the important things: the way she had slid her hand back up his neck; the angle she had tilted her head so he could feel faintly her pulse against his lips—

—and that she had not opened her eyes once.

Amon said flatly, "Feel free to use your bending."

"Fuck you!" Then she spun to the crowd. "And fuck you, too, morons! I'm so sick of this place! Nothing! Makes! Sense! And _you_!" She whipped around, sticking a finger to his face. "Think you're the only one who can pretend to be a non-bender? Listen up, assclown: either fight me with waterbending like a decent human being—hell, even bloodbending would make you less of a dick—or we can both be hypocrites and fight boring. Your pick, _fuckwad_!"

"Korra," said Tenzin faintly.

More booing, but the world didn't seem to exist for her anymore. With two bunched fists Korra thumped the sides of her legs. "_Liar!_"

Then the world watched the Avatar squeeze her eyes shut and lend her lungs to that word five more times until her voice finally broke. The world watched the Avatar search for her breath in difficulty, minus her pride, with a now faraway look on her face. She did not cry.

Amon said flatly, "Feel free to use your bending."

Despite the splitting headache, Korra heard the words loud and clear, but in a delayed way, for his voice was now grotesquely out of sync with the movement of his lips. Light shrunk. She saw only a Water Tribe man: his skin was pale but those were Water Tribe cheekbones, Water Tribe eyes. The word _fundamental _floated up; she was thinking out of her husk, oddly calm—_what would he do, if he were to expose someone's true color in front of the whole city?_

She was determined not to use bending. It seemed an insult. _We're capable of adapting_, it was Katara's voice, coming up in a sound gloop somewhere deep in her head, _but we're also a strong community; we can get over anything by sticking together._

He was already coming this way. She wasn't sure if the plan was going to work but she had to give it a try. Korra allowed herself a slow smile: so, it was going to be one of those dances.

* * *

23 November, 170ASC, the citizens of Republic City witnessed not a fight but a spectacle. Just look at them! Both so quick! But in completely different styles! Pure _gold_! And yet they noticed at once that there was something different about the way Korra moved—in pro-bending matches, she'd always seemed the epitome of rightness. Justice herself couldn't fight more _correctly_ than Korra. But that afternoon, on that stage, she was nastier than a Wolfbat. Unbeknown to these people, Korra was employing the skills she had seen in one of three ancient scrolls, years before she came to the city. Technically it was still Water Tribe style, the essence of which was also balance, and yet partly because the forms themselves seemed revoltingly savage, partly because it could cause much more damage than traditional waterbending, most Water Tribe warriors had chosen not to learn it. In the course of time, it had become little known. At the maroon title _Discipline and Punish: On Bloodbending and the Evolution of Unpurified Purists_, Korra had skipped the second scroll in disgust. The third one, its title written in cobalt, was called _The Archaeology of Demolishing Reconstruction. _

But before she could open it, an appalled Katara walked in and snatched these scrolls away. There was a serious conversation and promises were made. Korra, being Korra, had spent the next few days secretly practicing what little she had remembered from the first scroll, but stopped soon. The moves alone had felt too venomous: what it did to water was mostly turning it into different shapes of ice instead of making it flow, not so much pushing and pulling as swinging and swiveling. Speed was supreme, elegance neglected.

Amon was no stranger to this. He had himself practiced to the same scrolls—all three of them. In fact the style alarmingly resembled chi-blocking. Had she finished the training or chosen bending, he might have easily ended the fight, but it was exactly her inexperience and incompleteness that had made those already quick-as-hell attacks even dirtier. Slightly distracted by the irony of this, he found himself on the receiving end of a chest-flank-stomach combo. Apparently, there was nothing evil in hiding your wrath. Everything was excessive: Korra didn't jump, she _leaped_; she didn't hit, she _walloped_. It wasn't so much fighting now as demonstrating opposite beliefs. Even though no bending had been displayed so far, it had gone from Non-bender vs. Bender to Martyr vs. Tyrant. In every way that Amon was unduly suffering, the Avatar was relentless and underhand. And when she successfully pursued him with an iron hold and delivered another elbow smash, the arena rocked with fury. Something was seriously _off_ about this duel, everyone had noticed; the Avatar was somehow the fast one, and Amon the poor clumsy sod. _Is our leader trying to make a point by offering himself to such cruelty?_ they wondered. Because now kneeling with one hand on his belly, he seemed to be speaking silently yet eloquently: _See my face! See how I suffer! I am simply the mirror of your profound grief, and she what's deeply wrong with the world! I am fated to enlarge your sense of human conditions by poking my own nose into Great Pain! _All this in a contorted face.

What happened next proofread this silent speech. Their leader was much stronger, after all. So, when sufficient time had passed, _Misery_ and _Oppression_ served, it was only inevitable that Amon caught her wrist and then followed up with a fierce jab to the left rib. _Finally,_ Chi-blocking. At this the arena became pandemonium: their Hero had righted himself as Evil Avatar fell to the floor with a sharp hiss. But in a moment she was on her knees again, and this time Amon didn't disappoint: he ducked a sweeping—_Equalist Style_—jabbed her twice, once on the left arm, once on her spine—_that's right, stay down you little shit_—and then clutched her hair, dragging her towards the edge of the stage. There was a blank look on that scarred face, as if he had been giving these people a lecture and the Avatar had volunteered to help him expound on the principles of ass-kicking seriatim. Some in the crowd were already practicing their imaginary speech to their imaginary kids born to the new world: _See, son, there had been dire times, but all you need in life is faith, just as we had faith in him_…

"That's it!" shouted a very red Mako and marched forward. But apparently it wasn't quite time for the triumph of Good over Evil. Not yet. Being dragged like this had left both her arms free, and the one that hadn't been chi-blocked connected swiftly with his crotch—

_Oooh! _cried Republic City. He released her hair and made a blind grab. He caught nothing.

"Korra—" Mako reached a hand to her but stood riveted. Something was not right. With an unhinged smile she peeled herself off the floor and hissed I'm fine. And then, as if to prove the theory to herself, she staggered towards Amon, curled up with his forehead pressed on the ground, and turned him on his back with a solid kick on the stomach. The crowd had another outburst, but was then plunged into a silence at this even weirder second round. She straddled him and started hitting his face in a rather pointless way, the kind of punching you'd see in an androgenic bar fight instead of a match between two martial artists. Amon collected her wrists in one hand and flipped her over with an arm locking her throat. But too quickly, she wrapped her legs around his neck and pinned him down again with impressive strength. Everyone stood stupefied—it was like watching two children wrestle in the mud. Much grunting, no harm done.

There was, to Amon, something humiliating but liberating about not having to calculate every move anymore. What's my stand; where's our root; in what miraculous angle do those lips curve up. The pain in his crotch was still blistering but it also felt strangely distant. He saw the Avatar on top of him with that same trapped-animal look, a silent warning in her shaky bottom lip. He saw the line; it was so tempting—

And if I break you here and now, in which ways would those tiny bits fly?

Writhing out of his grip, she reached frantically for his face and managed to wipe off the make-up on his brows. She spit a laugh on his face. "Careful, Noatak—your Water Tribe is showing!"

Growling, he grasped her fingers and bent them back so hard he heard the bones snap. An inrush of sinking. He must have stared slantwise into her eyes. He must have hit a chi-point below her right chest and lifted a limp Avatar up. For somehow her head was under his arm, and he was reaching for Ya Men… _One more step, one more, and this will be over_.

With one arm around his waist, the other flailing in the air, Korra felt something warm pressing the back of her neck; she saw Tenzin and Mako's feet, upside down, moving this way—

_"Fuck this!"_

The world watched the Avatar reach for the back of Amon's knee and pick him up, bridal style. Although normally the groom wouldn't then drop the bride on his knee. He saw a flash of white, followed by a longer, larger blackness, engulfing. Vision hazed; the first and last thing came to his conscious was her face looming over with a sneer… The world gasped at the python-shaped fire. Blue as energy, hissing and wrapping around Korra's unblocked arm. Years from now on, people would still find themselves in dispute about whether they had fallen into a collective delusion that afternoon—it came and went too fast, the fire, and the next thing they saw was an Avatar floating with her limbs twitching, and the city's most beloved non-bender, sticking his arm out with his fingers curling into a claw. The world flinched at the sound of organs clashing; the world looked away from their faces, which somehow had the very same twist at the moment—a mixture of agony and frenzy and, oddly enough, a flare of great relief.

* * *

I've waited for this moment with an intensity that through its long suppression is now asserting itself with volcanic necessity and this moment waits until I am forty. I like bloodbending, I'll say it, and to bloodbend is, if it isn't too farfetched a comparison, not so much dislocating the bones and controlling the flow as it is a vulgar yet effective delivery from self to other selves, and by "selves" I am here referring to not fleshly bodies but the supposedly essential elements of other people: wholeness, consistency, and yes, memories. Whether my father had in his time reached this state of complete transference I cannot say. I only remain the vision of and inside _her_—she is not frightened. In fact this would be one of those rare occasions I've encountered in which the word "elated" might fit properly. She is transitorily and largely elated. I cannot say I'm surprised, and find myself fully aware but surprisingly indifferent of the fact that the whole city had just realized what I am. A liar about and to himself. Because the moment she showed up with the firebender boy I saw myself fed up: everyone has been so busy; I myself have been engaged in the preparation for this nothing. No-thing. Why the fuss, really? Here is another matter I've been considering frequently and futilely of late: Do I even care about these people?

I've also been asking myself whether True Power can express itself in the secondary physical characteristics of eye color, eye shape, and what I now perceive in those eyes as childish triumph. A girl from a line of fearsome half-gods. It is not the likelihood of her Avatar State that I've been dreading, even though I am fully apprised of what had happened between Avatar Aang and my father. Yakone was way beneath my level, Avatar Aang was far out of her league, and therefore I am to believe the chasm of physical power between us to be unfathomable for her, unproblematical for me, and puzzling to those who aren't part of this so-called duel.

Why have I let myself be so easily manipulated into manipulating her, then? I ask myself. It could be her eyes. For now in the influence of the daylight, they have become a scorching horror at which I cannot look directly—they have become the sun. I'm not ashamed to say I've had an erection since our preposterous tussle, which erection, thanks to an earlier incident, is getting more fiercely painful by the second, but which, thanks to the nature and now I'm suspecting the purpose of my garments, isn't remotely close to becoming a real embarrassment. And as you can see I'm still able to think straight; everything appears slow when time collapses like this. Now, the true dilemma: if I insist on taking her bending, then I will be truly and utterly the guy who accomplishes _nothing_—and not just in a mirthless humor of literal sensitivity. But without an Avatar who possesses on some level a formidable power, and who has been, as I can tell by the rush of blood and pheromone in her lower abdomen, considerably drawn to my own physicality, which fact I can't say is unflattering, but anyway without an Avatar like this, the United Force will soon be in control of the situation. These are riled citizens, among whom the conflict will not cease even if I manage to escape, which I can say is beyond easy.

Should I, though, just leave things behind like this?

Meanwhile I am or have been sensing something more bestial and muscular than conscious taking me over. It begins in my sacrum and is currently shooting up along numerous chi-points, I'm getting the feeling Tan Zhong, Guan Yuan and Zhang Men. It transcends all the memories and visions and Objects of Passion and eventually Passion itself, wanted or unwanted. It has become _elemental_. In a gelatinous vision I see myself with a purple fist adding force to the bloodbending grip, on her and on the airbender master and the firebender boy and ah, what do you know, my lieutenant.

The kids are simply too terrified to move, as are most people off and on the stage. There should be _some_ boundaries, I suppose, though I'm not sure they are there for me. I see in a gelatinous vision something I don't see—for there is such a thing, for I'm gradually and now mostly inside her now. I see in a gelatinous vision my father's face, his body prisoned in earth and this is the first time I, Noatak, look into Aang's gray eyes after our last encounter twenty years ago and he is a very handsome man at what I'm to untimely assume again my own age, even though the concept of time is now presenting itself as quite a schizophrenic asshole and I see myself standing on the crater of a volcano with lava burning up and thick smoke and a beautiful enormous maroon dragon protectively encircling my undeniably moribund body and then comes an enveloping rush of being thrilled and _serious_ about dying for my people—my people—and I am close to tears. I am happy. I am hugging an offensive-smelling but too cute polar-bear dog and Dad's calling us back for dinner. I'm not hungry but there's always room for Mom's zucchini bread so yay! I am trying my best to concentrate on the fire and make sure the flame doesn't reach the edge of this stupid-ass leaf—UGGH! Who the hell invented this method! I can shoot fireballs since I was five and now I'm learning how to breathe again? On Aang's Memorial Island there are footsteps clicking behind me and then there's that mask. His speed is uncanny and I feel helpless just like in those dreams but now that we actually meet, he just seems bored even when we're already fighting. Am _I_ boring this guy? Am I really that big of a moron to these people? I don't know _what_ this is but somehow I want to kick-start this jackass, I want to see him pissed off and scared, I want to see his face behind that mask… Is he even capable of expressions? I don't know how he did it but now I'm on the floor with my limbs numb. Hurting like hell and numb—how! It doesn't look like he wants to harm me or take my bending. So what's your deal, dude? And now that I can feel my arms and legs again, you're once again out of line! Oh you're so out of line, threatening me and being so close and pressing against my back and all that—OK that's it shithead…

The fire is blue and it feels oddly good. It's tickling my spine and this must be what it feels like to be the sun: so cold and hot and calm and raging at the same time! With my gut I see disaster, see you're scared and human after all. With my eyes I see us falling into a stalemate where I can't use bending and you can't use chi-blocking. I see power matching. Too much power. I see me lunging over the collar of your tunic and biting you on the neck because it seems the only choice left. I see you smelling, more than anything else, like a winter storm back in the Compound, which... I don't hate? I see me not knowing why I'd do any of this; see tears on my nose and then your clothes. I'm very convinced I see home, in front of my eyes and somehow high overhead. I miss home. And unfortunately, you smell like home.

After I put my clothes on, I see me asking why you hate us benders so much. I do that, talking too much when it's awkward. I see you saying you don't, and me believing that. Because you simply don't kiss someone—even it's probably in a trance—right to the spot. You don't fill them up and turn them inside out. I see me lifting your mask, and you stopping me before I get a good look above your lips. You taste like loss, and I taste on you myself with an inside deeper than I think I have.

And now I see me being a moron. Really, Korra. I see me lying to my friends for a month, and you to a people half of your life. I see me thinking like you, and you acting like me. You see: I see a terrible and too perfect match.

The fire is blue and it feels oddly calm. This time it's not because I'm angry, but because I know it'll make you angry. I see I've truly pushed you into a corner, and see insignificant pain following—I thought it'd hurt more, though; I guess it just doesn't count in comparison—and that pain vanishing into a black hole, now invisible. Which means trouble because so far I've never closed my eyes, I don't trust myself enough. But apparently it's come to a point because I don't think Mako and Tenzin and—why do I even care?—your lieutenant could handle what I'm to assume is not technically pain but some sort of shift?

Before I close my eyes I see you see me. Now, I see in a gelatinous vision your father's face, his body prisoned in earth…

* * *

The air chakra is located in the heart. It deals with love and is blocked by grief. Lay all your grief out in front of you… Let the pain flow away.

* * *

Which is never to say that I love that guy. And I'm drawing this conclusion on _facts_, because I don't suppose you would glow up and blow a gale that knocks someone you _love_ out of the window. I can still see, but only from above me. Now that I don't feel him in her anymore, there is emptiness echoing in both our chests, a vacuum threatened to be broken by more sadness than it seems could belong to anyone. I feel sorry for that girl, but am afraid even to look at her, afraid her heart would burst. The ability to stay inside of myself has truly and utterly disappeared, which scares me to no small degree because I see my whole life is to an extent why _she_ is here, roaring, the fire blazing out of her mouth still blue. You know how sometimes you have that dream where you're naked in public and everyone is pointing and laughing? Well, this is not like that. It's worse. The stadium becomes so very _tight_. I don't even want to follow him but I know I have to get _outside_, where air is available. I try to find my friends but can't move with my head stuck at this angle that only allows me to stare _down_: she's still roaring. I pull my hair. Wake up.

Finally. The Avatar decides to get out also. So she gets out, but only after producing an earthquake and a small tornado, which thankfully scare away the rest of the people that haven't already bolted at the sight of bloodbending and then blue fire. Here I indulge a bit—velveteen red, racing blue, where's the line?—but only for a second because we are now outside the arena. I think I should warn Noatak that a crazy Avatar is trying to kill him, or maybe I should just kill him. I don't have enough time to decide because there he is, on the water, which is reddened by the sun. He's so slow. I expected him by Tarrlok's words to be some sort of almighty bending god, but his waterbending is even more disappointing than his bloodbending. That water pinwheel is a nice trick, though. I see her using the same thing. I see that familiar curiosity to know what he looks like when he's scared shitless rushing back. I see her as an overly cruel child with a magnifying glass staring ominously at a carpenter worm—except she can just summon the sun to end the worm on her own. This is boring: in a moment she's at his back. With four water whips she throws him from Yue Bay onto the dry land. And around us are Air Temples. How did we even get here?

She's doing things I don't do, hearing noises I don't hear. Now she walks hot-faced to Amon groaning on the platform where I've practiced airbending. (It's quite a view from where I stand, the wind in her hair, the Yin Yang pattern under her feet and all that. Forever below. Below me.) She clutches his throat, lifts him up to her eye level, his toes frantically searching for solid ground.

Which does not make sense because we used to be so much shorter than him.

He's turning purple. Now, I know I'm _strong_—it seems to be the only word ever used to describe me. And I've until this point worn it so very proudly. _But seriously_,_ what does it mean?_ I wonder as she starts inclining her head to the perfect angle that says "now show me some of that mortality",_ Is this why we're given power? So we can choke people to death for lying to us?_

Fury halves. Also divvied-up is a dim haze inside me, folding into its own ends where rosy lights start and fade. And just like that I'm down, in, and me again. I pause for a beat of a pause, in which I look into his eyes, in which I see mine, in which there is no more glowing. When my boring eyes refocus out of his, I see no fear in that face. Fragility, maybe, everything else seems filmed, alien. Now that the make-up's completely gone, I somehow find him uglier with strong brows and full lips. I have never seen someone so good-looking this hideous. I release him and push him to the ground. Now I feel cold. Is it November already? When I slowly sit down and try to enjoy an intake of early winter air, all my muscles scream at the same time. The feeling is now physical in nature—emotions have all turned to vulgar pains, mostly on my heart, somewhere I am to assume near the left atrium.

Which is funny because I don't remember ever hearing the word _atrium_.

He's done coughing, hugging his knees with a childish look on his face. I shift a bit, meaning to kick him but my body won't allow that much action. I look down at three fingers on my right hand presenting themselves in a strange angle, and can't for the life of me recall when they got broken, and then I look away to the mountains tiredly dulling into the last of the sun. In this unheroic silence, a stranger could walk on the island and think some bully had just taken our favorite toy. I've always thought that my first time in the Avatar State would be majestic, that I'd meet Aang and he'd teach me some epic energy bending. But then again I had also thought my first time with a man would be on a bed. Not like this. Nothing like this.

It finally enters me as a human fact what a failure I am, and leaves me by a weeping that makes my entire body convulse.

Which is just plain stupid because of how much it hurts to cry.

* * *

I admit, in my younger days I had imagined seeing the kind of gentle, rhythmic tears on a woman's face, in which feminine grief I'd grow into a better man. But instead I've got Korra crying next to me with a virtual misery that one would never expect from Korra. I now sit near a girl who a minute ago was trying to kill me. I don't find her terrifying in that state, though. I know that wasn't her. I consider for a second putting a hand on her shoulder, helping her ease this substantial pain I caused, but instead I find myself struck by an epiphany, which of course is not to say that a ray of sunlight is miraculously thrusting through the clouds on fire and hitting me in the face, but anyway I see or decide in this epiphany that hurt is caused only by thinking. So I stop thinking, put down my hand. The wind is thin and coy. Pushing through the red sheet of Yue Bay, two battleships are coming this way.

The cell is a platinum one with no window. (Apparently can't be trusted with light or guards.) Duty-bound to be in despair. Find no such thing. Fully grown into a new indifference. Look bored. Get bored. Korra is what defines time: she comes with meals. (Apparently can't be near anyone but the Avatar.) No conversations. She sits in the corner, crosses her legs ankle-on-knee, waits until the meal finishes, stands up, slams the door on her way out. The slams are an entertainment of their own: assessing the anger behind each, feeling a thin wind caused by each. These define time.

She can't seem to stop staring, though there is no hatred in her eyes. Can't read them. The gazes are broken, each constituted of innumerable small gazes, each as long as the gaze itself. These define time.

The third night—defined by the slams and gazes—she shows up shivering, sweaty. _They're gonna kill you, both of you, no trial… There was talk of trial but the demonstrators blocked City Hall… It's beyond fucked-up out there. Tenzin's still dealing with them and there's this press conference tomorrow morning but I don't think he can hold much longer_—

The words mean nothing. Should be kissing her.

_… I don't know what's the deal here but I'm pretty sure they're already deciding between electrocution and injecting and I think I heard someone mention dragging some sort of scaffold out again. The fuck—I thought I was the one going nuts… And even if they don't give you a death penalty I'm pretty sure these people are just gonna tear you into pieces themselves. Now that most of them are non-benders this whole thing is getting much worse—anyway there's no time now, they know I'm here with food and I didn't have a plan but on the way here I found this patrol boat and waterbent it here—I checked the tank, it should get you far enough. And your brother, I suppose, there's talk that you two are in this together. So just take him and don't ever come back. Just got the key to his cell, wait, I got it… here—_

Lean for her lips, get kneed. The pain brings thinking back. I stumble onto the bed, my hand again on my crotch. I hear me cussing, see her putting down the food tray and bending over beside me with her hands covering her mouth and laughing and at the same time looking terribly sorry for laughing and unable to stop laughing and now I'm laughing also at something so fatally hilarious that we keep going until the cell seems to have run out of air. I don't think she means to do this next but she's crouching down in convulsion and resting her head against my knee with an arm wrapped around my calf. I don't know how much time has passed before her laugh turns into tears. We don't speak much—she knows my names, I know what she tastes like, that's all. I cup her face but make no effort to wipe the tears. I let them run in rivulets down her cheeks and pool in the soft of my palm. We apologize at the same time; it does so little at the same time. Things happen in a still loop now. She catches her breath and says there's only one way for this to work, I'd have to bloodbend her into unconsciousness and make it look like I escaped; she says she won't go into the Avatar State if she's calm; I tell her I'll do none of that; she punches me again, this time right on the knee nerve so I involuntarily kick her in the chest. Apologize; get yelled at (_either do this or you both die, your pick dickhead_); see Tarrlok's face; see Yakone's; see Mother's; see the old family house; see the old barn; see the river cutting through Aipalovik; see Korra; help her up; hold her closer; promise her it won't hurt much if she doesn't resist; feel a tiny nod against my chest; feel her heart again; puts her gently on the ground; apologize again, and again, and again.

* * *

"Got me, though," Tonja is saying.

"_What_?"

"Your question. The difference? Couldn't think of a thing that'd sound smart. Suppose it takes time, sorting out what's to give and what's given," she says, "and if we're lucky, maybe we've been doing the right thing all along. But before you figure it out, try and take a break from that head of yours once in a while, if you give yourself half a chance."

My nose still in Tullik's neck, I acknowledge this with a muffled purr. "He smells so good. Can I eat him for dinner?"

I see her putting on a mulling face. "Sure, just—not all of him. Wouldn't want you to spoil your appetite." She turns away. "Oh and by the way, about your first question: whoever you think is lying to you or using you may not be doing it because he's a liar—sometimes they just don't have a clue about the truth themselves."

Perhaps it's not too inexplicable, then, that later when you and your brother open the door, you see me holding Tullik in one arm, setting plates on the dinner table—Tonja just said something funny and I feel like I should laugh. I should because she's kind of a hero. The kind of discipline and strength to love out of the part that _can_ love without worrying if I can walk out, I don't think I'll ever have that. But I decide to try something, and that's why when I walk up and put Tullik in Tarrlok's arm, it is with an apologetic smile that, I'm glad to see, knocks him clean out of reactions. And as Tullik tugs at my hair, crying and refusing to let go, I ask myself, not for the first time in days: _Why, in the sweet shrieking names of Moon and Ocean, am I here?_ But this time I think I hear a faint answer return and it sounds like something is trying hard to be forgotten. It says,_ Because you simply cannot be elsewhere_. I don't know, maybe I'm imagining all this—three years can be a long time; it's stretched and warped the way I listen and see, and yet I'm entering a sadness realizing nothing truly moves. I can't move.

But despite the possibility that I'm just running laps, I still want to talk to you somehow. So, in this perpetual time loop, I'm eyeing you as we are walking into the hallway as a conversation is taking place. The hallway is five-thirty warm, the conversation featureless with a rhythm like soft and tired breathing. Afterwards, it moves an inch: you lean over for a small kiss, and this time, I don't mind tasting my past on your lips.

* * *

So.

So.

Remarkable lady back there.

Quite.

So you dated her first?

It was simply tea. I realized within nine tenths of a second she was too wonderful for me.

Ouch.

Mmm?

Nothing—Tarrlok still pissed at me?

He's fine now.

_Already?_

The sole perk of aging: we don't stay angry. There simply isn't enough time.

…

Please don't make that face.

…

Korra I was joking.

Well you're not funny so quit it, a'ight?

All right.

Here's the thing.

Yes.

My brain says step out, my gut says in—I'm legitimately sick of their bickering.

I understand.

Annnnd, this is the part where you insert something impassive and infuriating that would really drive me up the bleeding wall but really you're just trying to make me stay, and—sarcastic comebacks, more bickering, blah, blah, blah—look, I'm sorry I kissed you, 'kay? Not just today but, you know. I have no idea what I was thinking—sometimes I'm just… this collection of weirdness.

Achingly accurate, that is.

Yeah, yeah, I'm also a fount of wisdom.

I'm sorry, too. For the things you've mentioned. And, for similar reasons.

I know. Do you—do you hate this part as much as I do? Can we just move on?

I think it's necessary that we do.

So I've been thinking and uh… excuse me—you're kind of in my space? Thanks. So I guess I've always been reading this tree-house brochure for the past three years, you feel me?

In my marrow.

But let's face it: I am, well, there's the title, even if I suck at it. Look, can you, um, not look at me, when I say this? … OK, I admit you are—oh boy, here we go—part but not all of the reasons I came here but I'm sure you already know that so I'm just gonna cut to the point and say that I really just want to find a place to sort things out and this next is going to sound so stupid but I didn't really think it through before I ran out like that and it took me so long to find this place and I'm irresponsible and selfish and holy shit so tired… It's not even because I have a lot of enemies; I just, don't have anyone on my side, you know? So believe it or not—

I'm sorry, may I interrupt here? I think I see vaguely where this is going.

Highly, highly doubt it. But go ahead.

I think it is natural and reasonable that the necessity to find yourself has become so acute it passed what we ordinarily perceive as moral barriers, but that doesn't make you selfish or irresponsible, Korra. Although I do understand with every bit of me the tired part you're referring to. So I'm to save you much trouble by asking this: Are you at present troubled by assumptions about whether I've noticed this mutual and searing yet rather uninvited attraction between us?

…

Korra.

Psh. So?

Well, don't be. Didn't Tonja just say you're overly concerned about the malaise instead of what's outside and therefore truly inside? That you belong to no one elsebut wholly to yourself?

How do you…?

Simply what I'd say in her shoes. See a young lady in my kitchen holding my son, a bit thorny and metropolitanized, but all in all so staggeringly tinkly it makes your tears well up, who is as a rule distantly polite, but who we now know—thanks to a greater camera in the sky and an incredibly handsome and annoyingly omniscient narrator—has indeed fallen in melancholy, is all.

You, a pretentious ass, who is—are being.

Why thank you. Don't worry, though. I'm in no place to judge; it's quite obvious that flashes of desires are once again beginning to get hold of me, too. And if I may say so in my perception and experience: those are not to be easily restrained. So, yes, to answer your inevitable question, I wish strongly you could stay, out of, as it were, distasteful reasons. Don't bargain with me on beauty, Korra. I'm only a man.

…

But perched atop this pile of the incorrigible is the fact that despite what you may have been imparted, the chief enemy of excellence—in physicality and spirituality—is not sensuous delight itself, but rather the tissue of inconsistency and vacillation, which will prevent us from unfolding. That being said, your actions and volitions are and will be entirely under your control. And I'm to respect your decision unconditionally.

That does not me feel better. Like, at all? But thanks, I guess. At least you made an effort to sound since—oui! What are you—

You've got crumbs on—here, let me—stop flinching! See? … Why of course I can't blame you for not trusting me. But the days of us refusing to be each other have to come to an end someday, sooner rather than later.

Refusing to be each other?

We all do. Every single one of us. And you can't deny it much longer.

I didn't. You did! When you did—what you did.

Such a bafflingly elegant conversationalist. Such poetry.

…

Korra.

…

I'm sorry. Please come back.

…

I'm to assume this might not be a good time to tell you that Tarrlok is coming with us tomorrow.

Be kidding, please.

Sadly you've forbidden me to do so. I'm sorry—earlier he wasn't angry with you. He just doesn't trust me.

Huh. Imagine that.

It's just for a few days, I'm sure.

Uuuug… can I at least get drunk before training, then?

I may have to join you on that… Speaking of depression, though, lately I've been feeling terribly nostalgic, or at least I've identified it as nostalgia—what should I make of this?

What do I know—at least you are home.

Too true. Too true. For quite a while now. Still, peculiar, don't you think?

…

Are you that upset about this arrangement? I can go talk to him.

Nah—see, the thing is, I don't know what's going on between you guys, and it's probably none of my business, but I think you should at least be happy that you've got someone who knows what you've been through and still chooses to stick by your side… I don't know, I guess they sort of matter at the end of the day. Family and stuff. And, I'm sorry if my being here has caused trouble after all this time but, I think you've already known there's no way out for me anyway. Trapped, kinda, at least for now. So I'm just going to be downright rude here and say that like it or not, I'm not leaving without learning something.

…

OK you say things now.

…

…

Welcome home.


	3. Sessions

Sessions

/*/

Being bloodbent starts with you walking into an animal pain, a new gravity sucking you in until all the squeaks and rushes of air shoot clean from you into a new air. You get to like the sound of your own blood after a while, thinned of minutes and thinning into a pure knock. At this your light shrinks, shaking sounds off; it's now the blackness some meters ahead that allows you a peephole view of true terror, a name-tagged regret that's always been there. Just for you. Some kind of fugue, this has to be, from which if you struggle upright this instant you'll be squinting at the Antarctic sun, a swollen drop by the east wing, where Katara lives, where you will rush through breakfast before four hours of earthbending practice. Lateness isn't an option with Master Yu. Careful not to catch the sun again. One more glimpse is a guarantee of floating colors on your lids. You are, after all, the only kid who had despite all warnings investigated the crescent sun in an eclipse until your retinas started to burn. And here you are, inflated, hooded in this vascular terror, all pupils and bare belly, waiting. Start wondering in a body readily reaching all the edges: perhaps pain isn't the result of a touch unwelcome but the ache for a touch undelivered. Perhaps if you wrap your arms around something long enough it will eventually become _yours_, it will move and hold still and reveal its sweetest inmost folds just to you, not in a sense of finitude or surrender but simply because you held palely onto _it_ first, groping wetly towards its emptiness as if stepping over a promontory, the endless flapping of black waves at your feet, inviting. And you keep on holding, alive and freshly twenty and unwell, not knowing which face belongs to whom. Holding, believing with all you could that otherwise the fall will continue. And perhaps, just perhaps, it's not the earth that's tipping on its axis but rather you on someone else's. Palms dug, your name new and better on the surface devoid of interstices, your heart swallowed by a sandpaper brown. Eyes rolling up and aside and back up to keep from facing the maw swirling open at your bluely summoned Sorry, an urge for penetration unfelt by others because only _you_ know it simply doesn't get more imperative than the Fall or hang, the How much longer and the If so why not why not why not, just as you know pain doesn't matter once you truly enter its setulose maw and whether the bars are seen from inside or outside doesn't make a difference and the maw will have you, and you will be free. Now choose.

* * *

"Stop, you're hurting her!"

"Thanks, Tarrlok, nobody noticed until you brought it up…"says Korra, rounding a dead shoulder in some kind of thespian moment. "Seriously, every single time."

"Are you sure this is the only way?" Tarrlok looks away from her. "Maybe you shouldn't be training her the same way he—that—I mean she's no bloodbender after all."

Reaching a hand under his sleeve, Noatak feels his patience, bulky enough in the past three years, slipping away at a revengeful speed. He squints: the sun is so malevolent he can locate it without looking. Training outside the barn was all Korra. "Still smells like someone died in there," she said and was not wrong. But Noatak suspects that's not the only reason. The barn is a solitary thing, out of a plain ground, without reason. She must hate every bit of this. Day five, it really couldn't be simpler, with him standing still, Korra trying to close the twelve-foot distance. At first he thought it was because the grip was too hard, but even after he diluted it to where a ten-year-old Noatak would barely feel it, she still cannot, quite physically, move one inch forward.

"Do we have to go through the theory _again_?" Noatak says, looking down at his shadow. "Because it really boils down to one point—_one_ thing I told you—"

"_Cathe_xis," says Korra over him, and then crouches down with a silent scream on her face. "Cathexis, cathexis, cathexis—trying my naked best here, man; it's not working!"

"Are you? really trying?"—lapsing into a slightly vulgar accent—"For the umpteenth time: pain only exists when you _let_ it"—with Korra mouthing the same words—"let go your side so it could abandon you then. Not the other way around…"

Their lips stop moving as red starts making its way down Korra's nose like held breath. For a second no one moves. Curious how, after _that_, a simple nosebleed can make you panic to this degree, thinks Noatak and almost trips himself stepping up. Korra raises her hand skyward.

"What are you doing?"

"What are _you_ doing?"

"You do realize your nose is bleeding."

"Uh—_no_, I'm just doing this for good fun."

"How is raising your hand going to help?"

Korra looks at him, looks at Tarrlok. "Left nostril, raise right arm to stop bleeding… never heard of it?"

Tarrlok makes three small sounds. "Adorable, teaching a waterbender how to swim."

"Shouldn't you be taking note right now?" Her eyes thin. "It's not like you know how to swim _or_stanch this."

From Noatak's expression, there seems to be a stench coming from her direction. Korra, somehow still allergic to this gaze, looks away. It sometimes reminds her of her grave little cousins, who have the same etherish way of staring at something either inside you or behind you, less offended than removed, for a moment, from the wholeness of a conversation as if there is simply no breadth needed when it comes to dealing with you.

"Didn't mean that," she says, soothing the air with her free hand, determined not to cast a look at Tarrlok. It's still running, quickly to her chin, gathering and falling to the ground, leaving big symmetrical drops suggestive of a perpendicular descent. They fall into a new silence, waiting, considering blood.

Hardly a feeling of adequacy, during and after, but also not the outright frustration: only the complete obliteration of Being Good at Something. For the past five days Noatak has been abstractly kind to her, keeping all his concentration on teaching her how to concentrate, giving tedious elaborate lectures about her body being the sole bulwark between petty dyspnea and something larger and crystallized. Strangely enough, it all sounds awfully like what Katara once said to her. Only this time it's without the much more decent context—was she ten or eleven? was it a raptured tendon or a dislocated joint? Now she only remembers lying on the bed that night trying to remember a time when her ankle didn't hurt like steel blue. There are some injuries healers can only do so much about.

There has been no reopening of certain topics, not even during the brief healing sessions he insists on having each night, starting right after her first long day of futilely resisting bloodbending. Her mind was elsewhere; she still thought of mentioning what happened earlier—the kiss in front of the barn, in the hallway, or what happened to Tarrlok that made him seem on the verge of imploding. But she swallowed the words back as he kneeled in front of her like it was the most natural thing to do in the world, putting a hand on the twisted ankle. At first she tried to convince him she was fine and was at least capable to deal with minor bruises, but then quickly shut up as he put the other hand on her knee. Her calf became part of a loop, she reckoned at once. No water, no glow, nothing like the healing she's learned. It felt… _inside_, of something chocolatey and constantly flowing, as if by osmosis the delivery had passed through the fabric of the night gown and seeped right into her. That was when Korra closed her eyes and decided if he was to play dumb, so was she.

It's still awful, she reminds herself not to justify bloodbending just because it feels good—in fact it's exactly the being healed by what caused hurt that alarms her. But that's not her biggest concern. Has it been five days already? Korra has to actively confirm with herself that she's indeed running out of time. The exigency feels artificial, requires her awareness and nothing more. The days have become indistinguishable not just because the lack of sunset; they start to bleed into each other and she can't delineate one pale hour from another.

These lessons, she'd expected them to be awful but at least exciting, the kind of horrified fascination when she was being bloodbent in the woods the first day she got here. Pure nonnegotiable physicality, lips circumscribing the air, tongue piercing something willing, teeth crunching the moisture of its fire—

Avatar Korra once recalled herself eating fire in her childhood, biting on a mulberry pie while sugar was still bubbling on the edge; the filling immediately yielded to her teeth. What intimacy, what sweat hurt when things enter within and open themselves up readily as a response to your own imperative inquiries!

_It destroys slowly the bender and thoroughly the victim_, is all she's ever heard people say, with eyes now seem needlessly widened. The real lesson, in all its real-life banality, feels more like getting punched repeatedly in the soft belly of ego for just no reason at all. And then there's Tarrlok, amazingly shaping himself up to be even more excruciating than three years ago to be around, giving the same knowing looks he gave in the airship on their way back from the Memorial Island, watching her fail with little sulks that somehow feel as belligerent as if he's laughing at her from the very top of his lungs. Though Korra has this theory that for whatever reason these sulks are mostly directed at Noatak. She keeps wondering if he knows what happened, the first kiss, the one after that, the night way before all this… Does the former councilman know the true reason why he's not rotting in jail at this moment?

"So really there isn't a less openly stupid way to do this thing?" The nosebleed goes as quickly as it came, Korra drops her numb arm.

"That's how we learned." Noatak squints and looks into the barn again. His aversion to the sun has become very clear. "It's blunt, yes, but also the only way to resist it without becoming a bloodbender yourself. Shall we remove ourselves from these obnoxious knives of light, then? I'm sure you can imagine the surprise of a not unlikely passer-by. I'd hate to come up with new excuses—as I'm sure my brother would agree, lying to Tonja alone has been quite challenging these days."

There is an expectant silence. Korra stands up and slaps the dirt off her hands.

"That's how we _would_ have learned," says Tarrlok abruptly, the first time he betrays any emotion other than contempt.

"Excuse me?"

Tarrlok cuts the air lazily. "Never mind."

"No, please," says Noatak leaning slightly forward and crossing his arms. "Illuminate me, what would you have done instead?"

"I never consented to this—not that you two would have listened to me. I never partook… I'm only here to make sure nothing gets out of hand."

"No, I meant the _other_ situation—unless of course I'm being stupid again and picking up things that weren't there… What would _you_ have done? if you had been, as it were, on the other end?"

Tarrlok looks at Korra. "In front of her? Really?"

"Why not. She seems to be the only one coaxing some life out of you in a long time." Noatak takes two steps forward, so does Korra. But that's all she does. She should be stopping this, and instead she thinks of what Aang said in one of their rare conversations—under the same frantic context—_Time spent paying attention to people is never wasted_.

All she knows from Tarrlok is that one night Noatak bloodbent their father and took Tarrlok with him, and before she and Mako left the attic, she was already too busy picturing punching Amon in all the humanly possible parts. It was Mako who asked what happened later, to which Tarrlok combed his hair with the fingers he was about to lose in a few days, and refused to give more details, saying they spent some time in the city but shortly separated.

"And that's the crux, no?" Tarrlok is saying and walking into the barn. They follow. "Here comes the moment the apprentice becomes the umpire. Whose side do you think she will choose?"

"Not really my concern, no offense, Avatar," Noatak says without looking at her. Now Korra is not sure if she wants to know: surely she can recognize a wound being reopened; there is something so virulent, so off, in the way they're talking that she doesn't have the heart to snap back at Tarrlok. Noatak continues, "And since we're on the subject of choosing, I'm certain you have _much_ to contribute, so tell me: What. Would you. Have done."

"_Anything_ would have been a better choice!" Korra is almost sure something just fled past them and out of the barn. "Anything would have led to a better end than the turmoil caused by your choosing."

"You guys." Korra soothes the fabric of her sleeve.

"I said nothing during all this." Tarrlok slightly shifts on the boulder Korra bent out of the ground days ago, lacing his wooden fingers with the good ones. "This self-transcendence through pain nonsense is his thing. Gets passed down, I get it. Effectively narcotic. If I'd never been _through_ it I'd be truly impressed. But it's a whole different matter if you're just using it to get back at her. It's more disappointing than disturbing. Seems a little beneath you, doesn't it?"

"And yet you still do not admit the Body orbits Pain," Noatak says, and Korra can tell this is what's important to him, what he actually believes: he has this habit of scratching his index fingers with his thumbs in brief rare moments of being serious.

Tarrlok smiles creamily, looks at Korra for a second too long, and then turns to Noatak in a way that is supposed to let him know that this is now without leeway. "You know, whenever I repeated that night to myself I'd always set up a scenario where I was being interviewed."

"Of course you would."

"Not because I was picturing myself going places but simply because I wanted to convince someone, anyone, other than myself that you weren't a dick."

"Guys, seriously. Let's not—"

"And I'd so carefully arrange the words to give the night a more respectable background so that you'd in the following scenes seem, well, less of a dick, and after all synonyms for snowstorm and congestion were exhausted, I still found no such way to dilute, so now you know how you'd always come up in all my rather pointless reminiscences."

Exhaling in understanding, Noatak gestures faintly I can imagine that.

"But here's the thing, for a while I felt tiny and consumed by not dread of our future in the city, but the possibility that I would never be able to forgive you. You, the one who got us into it; I was so desperately clinging to you and quietly resenting you at the same time, and I didn't even feel resentment when you were threatening to kill him just so I would abandon everything and leave with you. Only back then I didn't know that was resentment, which apparently could be a malformation of love, or least I was told so, repeatedly, on different couches that somehow had all been ridiculously large. But before that I could only register the feeling as something quite different from this mucilaginous anaclitic… _thing_ I'd been squandering on you. What a waste. Whatever it was I'm just glad it wasn't inexhaustible in nature… Ah yes, you two go ahead and give me that look, go ahead. Wince inside. See if at these words you could ever wince harder than I did."

"I'm not—it's… Can we just keep practicing? Noatak?"

"No dear you have nothing to fear from me. Go ahead, don't inhibit yourself. Whatever merit this bit of history might hold for you, explore. It's true I lack nouns for things of high-contrast colors and would ingest. _Me_, whose vocabulary has been as large as anybody's in Four Nations since I was all visible ribs. It's true whenever I thought of terms like attachment and affinity a part of me would very much cringe from my coeliac cavity straight into the thoracic one. It's also true that the biggest challenge of my days in politics hadn't been dealing with people, not even the two of _you_—it was restraining the urge for flexion of fingers in order to demonstrate disbelief. I was much of a wet dream to Dr. Zhang and many elsewhere, income-wise. Hard to imagine one could make quite a living out of listening, isn't it?"

The barn is so dusty it seems an ideal place for a sneeze. He feels along the outline of his jaw and continues like this, one word flowing from another, with seemingly no punctuation or breath: "Which reminds me of another thing I realized, by myself, during all those overpriced hours on this particularly grotesquely large couch, where I had also taken some seriously expensive naps. It was that certain complexes were better succumbed to rather than striven against. So I learned to define things by what they're not, in short ingenuous terms, here goes: they are not_nice_, Noatak, the things you did and what you're doing now. You are not a very nice person. I also stopped consciously avoiding the subject of Mother—read into this all you want, I'm practically serving it up to you, see if I care. It cost me over twenty thousand Yuan to admit I had a brother who was a dick, and that was _after_ I was selected for City Council. Oh don't even give me that look, you asked for it, you did… And _you_, Avatar, stare all you want with that cornered look as if wishing the floor of this barn would swallow this entire scene up into the spirit world: this, right here, is very much happening. And it's not terribly couth to make that face when someone's tidying everything up nice and clean and offering it to you in a handbasket you don't deserve, sure, but feel free to cringe all you want. And, to make it easier for you, here is what you do in the event of Evil People acting more bizarre than berserk: make tiny fists of your hands and feet and sit very up and very still… Look at your man Noatak, go ahead, look at him, see how he is appearing convincingly to contemplate and radiating exactly zero heat while doing so? You can't see them but no doubt those are fists in those boots. So try and keep up."

From where Korra stands, Noatak is going further than crossing his arms, his hands are now on his shoulders, half-embracing himself, somewhat effeminate. He faces partly Tarrlok, looking with a certain concentration either at or out of the door. Tarrlok says And _you_, _What would you have done,_ you kept asking? Let's see… well I didn't have the guts to admit I made a horrible decision choosing your side that night, nor did I have the guts to blame you for threatening to kill him and making _me_ choose to abandon her, even though that was so obviously a dickish move. Yes, _dickish_, the word that cost twenty thousand, so far the most accurate one I have for you. The more I thought of it, the more suspicious I was that you had the night all planned out… inviting Nyla was all you, wasn't it? And if Mom found out about their affair they'd definitely get into a colossal fight, which she did, and they fought _the_ fight, during which you just sat there as if watching clans at war—might as well with popcorns in your hands—and whenever he got angry he'd always take us out for a long one… so all you needed was that last where you _knew_ he'd snap… And there I was, thinking you were the one pushed into a corner screaming _She doesn't need saving she needs a new fucking husband_ because you were desperate to an extent… Is that what that was? It was, wasn't it. Look at me when I talk to you. _You_ asked for this… I never brought this theory up, terrified by just the white tip of the thought, going crazy by just worrying about going crazy. During pro-bending matches, at dinners… for so many years I replayed the night over and over, every single detail horribly zoomed: there he was, with his glorious plans and the boat tickets _just_ _for two_, and you, with your own little visions, no? in that fifteen-year-old anesthetizing glory of yours, looking every bit the Water Tribe Man. Noatak I'd very much like for you to look me in the eye and appreciate the fact that thus far I have not flexed my fingers once to signify quotes, the very absence of which movements is causing me no small amount of pain, so excuse me while I gratify my hideous desire and—_The Body Orbits Pain?_ Are you fucking kidding me? Come on, c'mon say something, anything, where has your formidable charm gone? … You two _so_ deserved each other… You've got a solid knack for shifting weight, Noatak, having others fight your war with minimum effort. And then there I was, at my sniveliest, entering adolescence, waiting so anxiously for your confession or a simple sorry in a world that—what was his term for it?—won't be all there-there-that's-a-champ. But you chose to keep living up to all his rules: in our five years in the city, you never explained, _never apologized_. You had so many chances. I would have forgiven you without thinking twice. And, lacking paragons and certain basic concepts in terms of honesty, I just assumed you had nothing to apologize for. So the only thing left for me was to blame myself. Things like _Maybe I should have let you killed him_ and _Maybe if I just had the guts to bloodbend you in the first place none of this would have happened_ started to tickle the back of my throat. But thankfully the not apologizing gets passed, horizontally as much as vertically. Now I'm just glad I didn't say the things you didn't deserve to hear.

Not unamusing that I managed to see just what you were _after_ you left for Fire Nation with Ursa—how did that pan out, by the way? never had the chance to ask—I remember being in the hallway of the Police Headquarter the very next day, waiting in line to submit my application—there was a brief time in law enforcement when waterbenders had the predominance over earth- and firebenders, remember? when Lin was in the Earth Kingdom for her mother's funeral and dealing with the remaining Daili agents? As I said, I was waiting, after two brothers who evidently bent different elements—the recruiters took only the older one's application, saying Sorry boys there are enough firebenders in the force now, we only need waterbenders, and I remember the waterbender boy saying something in an unnecessarily loud voice, he said _No him, no me_, and then took his little brother by the arm and left the building in a kind of theatricality that was meant to resonate. On my way back I went to Narook's and sat by our usual table and thought of what you would have done, had I been the firebender boy they deemed superfluous. Unwanted. You'd have taken the job alone and afterwards cheered me up with something vague and effectively narcotic… I'm not here saying that'd be the wrong thing to do; I'm only saying it would be the kind of thing _you_ would do, because whatever road presents itself, you will take, deft and so very resourceful, no hallway flamboyance, even if it meant quitting without noticing and leaving behind everything we had built. "Let go your side so the pain could abandon you." That's—that's something_, _Noa… What kind of fire dies when fed? Do you even notice that I've never blamed you for bloodbending me that night, as in not to your face, not once in counseling, and never even _in my own head_? It was after four glasses of osmanthus wine that afternoon at Narook's that I started hearing my knees' vitreous crunches, each grinding shift of vertebrae, each breath halved and freezing against my teeth, bars in every direction, myself repeatedly shoved into what was demonstrably the sharp end of a hammer, all at your will; I started recalling Time's taking brand new aspects—it wasn't so much as passing as hovering above me hand-on-knee like some kind of asshole with a syrupy offer that went _See the sharp edges on my wings will help carry you through this, little boy, maybe even help retrieve the tongue you have swallowed; there's no need to hold your breaths, no need to save them for the next second because there will be no seconds from here on, and all I ask in return is a minuscule portion of you what do you say?_ What does one say to this? _Look here sir I'm about to Let Go of My Side of Pain_? Why don't you ask Korra, hmm? _You_, care to take the narrative here? Just now, what was your response to this sweet sweet proposal? Nothing? Nothing to contribute? Why I remembered kneeling on the snow and hearing someone yelling at a distance _Fine take it whatever to make this stop_. It can't be me, I had immediately thought, _not born in this line it can't_. Even in hunched position I could see his face: he was fucking _smiling_. Did you even notice? Oh wow and _here we are going_—you go ahead and cry young Avatar, work those effective tears effectively. Did either of us march to the city and grab you to come down here doing whatever it is that seems to you so whimsically entertaining? Point for me where the coercion lies, would you? For the love of… Noa give her a handkerchief or something, that's my wife's dress… that's… would you stop I'm not even talking about—I didn't mean… Right, excellent, you do that, put your hand on the back of her neck because _I'm_ the dick here. Beautiful. I'm the inconsiderate dick who wouldn't cater. You know I'm just about sick and tired of spending all these sleepless hours trying to plumb whence the shit had come from. Still, every time it went back to you: if you had just given me enough time, Noatak, I would have figured out something else for us to do so that you wouldn't have to go to the city with him. But you made your own choice that night, you just couldn't wait some more. Every decision you made, you made them without me; you never asked me if I _wanted_ to go with you to find Aang so we'd no longer be benders… and look how well that all worked out. I don't even know who was the bigger coward, me for not insisting on staying, or you, for leaving me five years later still, just as you would have left me that night because you wouldn't have the courage to kill him even if I had said no to you. To you I was never a solution. I will always be there for you to condescend. Later it occurred to me just how much you hated _everything,_ not just him, we'd all become one giant glob that seemed to you some kind of univalent demon, no? I don't know if you still remember this but as a kid you would do this ridiculously spot-on impression of Mom, in school, when everyone was that age where they couldn't shut up about parents—when requested, you'd just look to the ground and suddenly look up and you'd just _be_ her, intent and grinning, with the same kind of wrinkles around your eyes that only enormous genuine smiles could produce. Do you have any idea how creepy that was? I'd look away, every single time, wondering why you'd do such a thing out of I could only imagine pure spite. And for so long I actually reproved myself for not feeling whatever it was that you felt… and I tried to put myself in your shoes, and the shoes within them: it was the very proximity of her that you could not stand, wasn't it? That she was, without her own knowledge, displaying the kind of virtue that happened to feed upon exactly what we were going through—ostensible affliction, provided penalty—in order to fulfill its own purpose of comforting the disturbed. It was the only explanation, why you would see us being exploited from both ends… Noa, pretty much all of us hate the things that aren't in our choices, and what little we do so meticulously choose are the things we would die for, us being an unfortunate example in Mom's case, you being an even more unfortunate one in mine. But you—there is just no capacity left in you for such things, am I correct? It has ceased to make sense to you that some people, in this life, would love you so relentlessly pathetically despite your obvious contempt for them, no? You don't have to pretend you disagree… honestly, just don't. Every time you find that impulse to defend yourself on this matter I want you to think of your impression of her, arms spread, unaware, reaching distain.

Believe it or not, until this day I still don't blame you for bloodbending me, a part of me would still rather believe that you were truly in despair. You had indeed carried so much more. And what happened three years ago in my own office didn't exactly allow me a moral high ground. I deserved to lose the thing I got without deserving, for this alone I should be grateful to you. But that afternoon, sitting in Narook's and freshly grown out of my skinny-flanked awkwardness, was the first time I _saw_ so clearly, that you were made of—and could only live for—the things you hated so. It was your absence that allowed me the one true glance that you were made of what you hated even before the hate itself grew real beaks and claws. So there I was, surrounded by people for all I knew I'd have to face alone for the rest of my life, never more at a loss but somehow soberer than ever. I saw the world around me, made purely of objects, fantastically old and honest and functioning without a body, without you, Noatak. And there was something very assuasive about that fact. It was then that I started weeping into my noodles. Fat slow tears entering my very first meal eaten alone as an adult… It doesn't matter who was to blame anymore, Noa, we are way past that. "What would you have done?"—you think an answer would mean anything? I saw every loop so very clear when you stood on the boat. I realized immediately why you got us out of jail so easily. And I recognized those stupid sparks in your eyes every time you had just narrowly got out of a debacle, already prepared to do something I _knew_you wouldn't be able to finish. I was done indulging you. I could not go through the same all over again. There were two gulls that kept chasing the boat, you didn't notice, and I mumbled a sorry, to them, I never owed you shit. Then of course you wouldn't just Let Go. Every fucking time. And now Trouble stands on the porch he had paid for and stares at you the same way Princess Ursa did, and Laniq, all of them… each more beautiful than the last, I'd give you that. Remember Laniq? Sure you do. I ran into her later that day after I stepped out of the restaurant, rubbing my eyes in the aftertaste of Plangent Manpain that I despised and dreaded more than any other legacies of his, more than the Material itself. She had just moved to the city to be a singer, Laniq, still cocking her head just so with a half-smile when intent. Of course she asked about _you_ at once. For a second I fought the instinct to confess—what you did, what you were made of, what I myself was capable of doing, but by that time I had freshly exhausted all terms and excuses for you. It took me half a day, one job application and three bottles of osmanthus wine. Just like that. So you see, if I were to brief the girl on _Hey so um what's Noa been up to?_ then in my unprecedented spirit of candor you would have come out so fucking hideous a person, you'd be delineated as a chasm of maladies, a scarcity of whatever the word_human_ encompassed, and I just wasn't sure if I was ready for that. I had done my share honoring the past, Noatak, the boy you once were, even the man you then chose to become—_I watched you become_, I had nothing left. So I defined you dead. It was all for the best. After delivering the news I spent some time on the street catching up with her in fraternal woe, until it started to rain out of a nasty sky, it was all good.

* * *

Avatar Korra feels, at tiny sharp moments, that she has no real existence except for what she_does_—what she sees or feels does not count. For three years she's been waking up to the same animal pain, morning soaked in the bowl of night, her limbs tingling with the residue of whatever damp horror for a few minutes. Sitting up elbow-on-knee, in that period of reluctant consciousness that allows easy re-entry to sleep, waiting for the faces to retreat into the walls.

The day Katara passed away was the day Korra turned twenty. It took her longer than it should have to realize what it meant: she outlived Aang by exactly twenty years. Everyone was there that afternoon, Bumi was the only one crying. Her breathing came and went, each time shallower, fainter, and each time it came back, they would sit up very straight at once, her children. And then it seemed to stop all together. They waited for it to come back, Tenzin touched her palm with his whole fist, it looked very strange, as if he was the one answering a search. She didn't respond to the touch.

In the department of wanting Korra to always tell the truth, Katara was alone. She was the only person who would shake her head every time when Korra kept making tiny jokes instead of being more direct, which didn't even happen that often. But no one has minded the way she did, not even Tenzin. That night, Korra went to bed very early, hoping to meet Aang in her dream. And, as usual, the faces in the wall visited first—

The telescopically seen faces almost always visit right before sleep. Among them, features are to come in twice as many aspects and each is to be perceived with intensity and lucidity. Puke-white and smiling, the mouths swirling open with more rows of teeth than one could count. It's not completely unbearable—to see things in dimensions that are usually overlooked. They will appear denser, more understandably composed, the features. The intermittent crossing and uncrossing of the eyes are to be vividly seen, and occasionally felt, as the features' dimensions switch. Individually, each face is not to be recognized. They come together, sometimes mumbling meaningless things in a distinctive celiac voice, things like If you see a flame of water, swallow it.

Again, it has not been entirely unpleasant.

The next morning she made her way down to the dining room in a seasonless morning air chilly enough to tighten scalps. Breakfast. Newspaper. Checking for boat tickets back to the city. Answering the same question from Tenzin, _Yep, nope, didn't dream at all_.

* * *

By the time Korra is done puking outside the barn, the sun is still sprouting spikes. She puts one hand against the wall and stands hunched waiting for her vision to come back, her head thumping like a heart. There has been a hand on her back, and when she can see again she recognizes by the boots that it's Tarrlok's. She doesn't care. Her shoulder is still half-dead, the first threads of pain have radiated out of the socket and down they go, now fully into the fingertips.

Tarrlok is saying, "I'm sorry you had to see this, Korra. I didn't mean to hurt you again—I got carried away, forgetting for a moment that I have inflicted the same on you… I'm sorry."

She bends down again, but nothing comes up this time.

"Whatever. Just get me out of here."

On their way back they make four stops for Korra to throw up some more. Noatak has been dead silent and doesn't help each time she feels sick. He follows them at quite a distance that his face is past-describing. The pain on her arm has crept up into one side of her neck. And Korra considers at once asking for help. The chocolatey delivery. She senses the right thing to feel here, after what just happened, is to be disgusted by just the thought, but all she wants is to feel better physically.

Whereas Tarrlok's constant apologizing is slowly becoming annoying. Korra can't feel anger, only nausea. After the first few minutes of crying she has become numb to words. One side of her face starts to cook, the heartbeat now in her arm and ears. It's very hard to believe this is the same sun over the rest of the world at just this moment.

"…but you see what I meant. If you were to stay here longer my brother would probably tell you it's because bloodbending reflects one's true self, itself characterless, a neutral approach that, sadly, can be used to manage all other approaches."

"Get your hand off me, I can walk by myself."

"Sorry… And please understand by saying all this I'm not trying to make things worse or better than they already are." His voice is faint and reasonably strained. "What you're seeing, it's all the same now, part of a larger rhythm that precludes solutions, always like this, just people staring slack-jawed at the gashes on each other that they neither try nor are able to fix."

This is the last thing she remembers hearing. There's something surreal and silly about fainting when you know exactly when you'll hit the ground. In a waterfall of light up it comes. Herself seen by her, asynchronous._ So lie down now, why don't you_, a celiac voice is saying as she falls all the way into a horizontality that's always been there, ignored in years of vertical moving—all that leaping, upright, faster, sturdier. _Who can knock you down if you're already flat._

* * *

Slow down there Noa. You can't practice on it if it's dead—you know damn well how hard it is to find a mastiff this big at this time of the year… Okay now, slowly, remember how we practiced? Whoa whoa what was that? What did I _just_ say? Doesn't take a fellow bender to spot your haste, does it? No need to rush, son, we've got all night. Let's see you loosen up just a bit—good, good. You have to give her complete attention. There's no way to fake this; the Prey can always tell whether you're focusing or taunting them with feigned focus. A prey treated with fake attention will never realize this isn't some silly game you're playing, this is The Game, here and now, in this spirits-forsaken snowfield, just you and her. I knew you'd understand, that look in your eyes, that bland gaze. I know precisely that look: full comprehension of something rightfully yours, in your line—I knew it Noa, and that's partly why I let Tarrlok go to that sleepover this time—at this he'd just spaz out, or else give me that very slow blink; he wouldn't understand the urge for penetration, not of the Hunter, we're talking about the Prey's urge, unknown even to herself at the initial stage of gauging. Besides it's a half moon anyway: we're to start running once walking became tedious, no? Now where were we? Whoa don't unclench yet it's still awake. Right, now I want you to look at that beast in the eye, this is the crucial moment: these creatures go through pains no smaller than this on a daily basis; if it's not this then there's always something else, and if you think by merely controlling their flesh you get to be the alpha then you've got another thinking coming boyo. This is what I call the truly fascinating part: the first thing the Prey does is always jerk a little _forward_ and straighten herself up and such—there it is, see that? See how she cocks her head at just that angle, trying to size you up with just a hint of perplexity? And I don't even have to teach you _how_ to look, you are doing it already Noa, which proves exactly what I said. Now look, in just this split second they'll _realize _something inherent and their very first presentation, coaxed out by the obvious disparity of power, will _always_ be in the inanest way possible; they don't even know that through this very improvement of posture they are communicating an evident desire to yield. That's what signifies a Prey: you will know one when you see her doing just that: jerking forward and erect with that ridiculous pride-like look. And that's also when you know the hard part is over. So you see I know what I'm talking about. The Game, its entirety, the meat, is less steering of fluids than _watching_ her empirical maps being erased and redrawn, her ritualistic abdication of power and succumbing to a heretofore faceless authority, a creature ten times smaller or thirty years younger. Remember this kiddo, the Prey's response is, from the primary instant, set and sustained, by not how hard the clutch is but the mere fact that it is _there_, even more substantial than the extraction you may or may not then distribute. And now the easy part, the part my lad Noa is doubtlessly good at: in this delay where the Prey processes her unaccountable wish to surrender, stunned by her own will, her face slowly declining towards that pinched look of the confined you're no stranger to, a delay like this is more than enough for you to put her into an easy sleep. Make sure she doesn't wake up for about an hour, go ahead—gotta teach you something new first, we're talking about next level stuff right here. No need to inhibit yourself, Noa, but also not too much. The Body will do whatever it's designed to do, immaculately, but only when initiated by someone who knows the Body like his own. The arouser must know what he's arousing. No nonsense. Somatic economy at its most considered. So go ahead give her that matter-of-fact amount of effort, feel those quadriceps muscles that allow her full knee-extension and the smoothest quietest fastest movements. Feel them? feel how each fiber does its honest duty to serve a larger purpose? feel how this beast exists in and entirely as a Body? That's her birthright right there my son, the mastiff, with four rows of those canine teeth that probably have been up to things you don't want to know, designed to survive even the nastiest winter. A Body at function, in full reconciliation with what it's shaped up to be, son, that's… that's some spirits working the darkest screeching nights. Appreciate it, then you can further understand why there should be a new set of grammar for the kind of grace _you_ are administering—what do you call an art that governs all other arts? Trust me when I say no-shit potential has a teleological end in itself. Aptitude like this is its own reward, grants those who possess it a constant tumescence of capa… Lemme put it this way, you get better without choosing. I was good, but nothing like this. The day will come when people know me not as Yakone but as Noatak's father… Don't give me that look son, you have no idea, but you will, and when it happens I will accept that new name with the kind of horrendous joy only a father could taste, that ineluctable delight to be eclipsed, effaced, by the flesh of his flesh. But before that we still have much to do. Gimme a hand, son, grab the forelegs, get her over there by the bonfire—can't have this beauty freeze to death can we? All right on three, easy does it—one, two… shit that's heavy, okay watch out for the sled, right behind you—there you go that's my boy. Whew, can't feel my fingers… Now I want you to get my wineskin from that bag… No, no, the one on the left, you're looking at the bag with two scrolls in it. That's all right, grab those for me too. Right, now get over here and sit by your old man. Sit closer. Care to try some of this? No? Come on you're a big boy. I started to drink at about your age… Of course back then we didn't have this, this Rouge Dew, sissy name, sounds like a stripper, made and sold only in a small Earth Kingdom village near the United Republic, and the price is obviously no-shit but damn it's good stuff. At the very first sip you understand where the name came from. Tastes exactly like that, a dewy red. I don't drink this much, not these days I… c'mon have some what's the big deal. That's a fella. My child right there. You're turning twelve in two weeks Noa, so we've only been doing this for what, a year? Eleven full moons, that's how I count. You might be wondering why I keep having you and Tarrlok practice the basics every day, no? The same dreary forms you've known since seven. No I get it… push pull, push pull, some scary crap, this is, compared to shooting fireballs and smashing someone flat with a boulder. No doubt you're wondering I'm already bending _blood_ what even is the point of all this, huh? huh? Don't shake your head, I know what I see, don't be a smart ass Noatak. I've noted those little glances you think you so subtly give. Don't ever think I can't notice an attitude when I see one. No relax I'm not upset—when you anneal a talent like this you're bound to deal with_ some_ quirkiness. A good thing, actually: all the top games more or less have this let's say fire, inwardly burning and recycling and so very smart-ass. I see it coming, and one of the reasons I brought you here today is to address this problem of yours, and clear it for you once and for all why I do what I do, why it's so important to _repeat_. Hand me those scrolls. No you open it, the one in grey. Can't afford to spill all over _sheesh_ careful Noa you don't treat a scroll in that kind of condition this way all right? That's right, gently, stay away from the fire.

Now, before I tell you why this regimen is necessary, here's a good one for you: the day I found these in the attic of my old home back in the south was also the day I discovered what I was capable of— well there had been a squirrel, I won't get into details, but it happened before I even opened the other scroll over there, _Discipline and Punish_, in which you can pretty much find out everything you need to know about where this all comes from, in case you get curious. Anyway that day I woke up discovering my eighth chest chair in the shower; the sky overhead was a glossy blue parted by weak threads of clouds moving due north. In a day like this you could just feel the discord spilling out and back inside, reabsorbing. South is not the answer, kid, and neither is the north. I was meant to be in the center of things. And boy they did not kid about multiplicity, it was no illusion: I was there when _everything_ started, I witnessed the birth of things, Noa, and it was the kind of thrill I dread people your age will never have the chance to feel. As you probably already knew from the radio, it was right during Katara's proposal of banning bloodbending altogether that pro-bending started to catch everyone's attention. A perfect game for a new-born city. The true irony being it was a non-bender's idea first. Katara's brother, I think. Purely of the Body, this game, for which there was a kind of unconditioned love I'd never had the change to enunciate or even consider until my bending was stolen. I'm not sure if I was thirteen or fourteen when I started, I only remember having to lie about my age. I think they knew though. But the thing was the game was for the young, I'm talking alarmingly young, people starting at the very worst in their late adolescence. The audience would much prefer watching kids under drinking age beat each other up. The first year I joined a team with a name so silly I'm not even going to repeat it. I was happy to just be part of it. And not for long did I realize it was more of a game of in-fighting and back-stabbing between sponsors, and sometimes politicians. As for the contestants, some of them were destined for the Grand Show, endorsing instant noodles and Baiyao ointment, all business. But these were also the first to burn out, chewed and spit out, vanished, as was the case with my first two teammates. At a juncture like this boys and men were separated in terms of sobriety, I guess, or that nebulous hunch of not fucking up in general. I came through with minimum struggle—while most of my peers burned with hunger for food that didn't exist, I myself played for the plain _irrevocability_ of things. It was simple: you fight whatever you fight wherever you fight; you give each game all you've got and then some. And that was all there was to it. I had no stomach for being a walking billboard, so the second year I switched to freelance contracts, drifting from team to team, less money, sure, but still it was quick cash and I got to play whenever I felt like it. Which was all the time. And get this, throughout my entire career as a pro-bender, I played strictly by the rules—no knocking people off the sides of the ring, no head shots… arguably the rules at that time were much less anal, none of this "no deluge" nonsense. I kept bloodbending all to myself, I was sloppy in that department anyway, tutorless, deterred by not so much as the law as the things I learned from the second scroll… Funny thing, what knowledge can both do to you and for you. The closest I got to the championship pot was a semi-final match, the very last of my _water_bending days… Look at me, mumbling about the good ol' days as useless fathers everywhere do because they've got nothing else to offer, if they'd offered anything at all… Remember I'm only telling you this because it's got something to do with what you're about to learn. The first couple of years in the city I lived on the second floor of this crumbling little colonial building; the apartment had a tiny balcony and a giant hole on the floor. All I had on me was three scrolls. The one I didn't bring with me today is _The Archaeology of Demolishing Reconstruction_, you'll need none of that… a bit too strong for my taste, probably written by some crazed healer who had some very unfortunate intensive curiosities for human anatomy. This next will not seem banal to you, I promise, the things on this untitled grey scroll you're holding. Everyone knows that bending forms came from martial arts developed from observing animals. In the primal stage of bending there were two major styles, Xingyi and Taiji… well actually there was one more called Bagua but that was adopted by airbenders. Now the traditional forms, the ones you and your brother have been practicing for four years, were broadly practiced by our people as a way to _defend _and also for its health benefits—the early healers learned the way chi travels internally by practicing Taiji forms, which by the look on your face I assume you already know. Al'right… But I'll bet no one has ever mentioned Xingyi to you, a style known to a pathetically small percentage of our people. It focuses more on different states of combat, and for whatever reason our people just chose to abandon this more practical and powerful style. Don't even get me started on that—let's just say there's a reason we got our asses kicked by Fire Nation for a full century. You want another sip of this? Nope? Why don't mind if I do. Go ahead, open that scroll… You've got to admit that there's a certain, well, ferocity, in these states listed. Five Fists they're called: Chopping, Drilling, Crushing, Crossing, and Exploding. Ah see now I have your full attention don't I kiddo. This right here is what I call without the nonsense, a formula designed to not only defend but _respond_, assuming at least three outcomes of a fight: the constructive, the neutral, and the destructive, the last one being the easiest to visualize and comprehend—that's where you'll begin, as I did. Tonight the only thing you need to remember is _The hands don't leave the heart and the elbows don't leave the ribs_. Don't confuse this with bloodbending. The Five Fists could be applied to answering all of the elements, including water, each in a unique way. This part is just theories. Why don't we dive into the good stuff. Gotta be cautious, if this baby catches on fire even you wouldn't be able to do much boyo. Wait lemme pull my glove off first… hold this for me. See this… this tiny practitioner I'm pointing at is trying to emulate techniques of twelve animal forms, from goshawks to ostriches to bears? Free very free to mix and match once you get the hang of things, that's all just technicality. Shit it's cold… help me put this back on will you? Noa you will _devour _all this in no time, I don't doubt that one bit, my little practitioner right here. In my second year as a pro-bender I was obsessed with the Xingyi forms. And they worked, of course: no one had seen waterbending like that. And keeping it all to myself was certainly no easy task but I managed to keep my head low. By that time I still didn't know what I wanted other than pro-bendering, I only knew what I didn't want. There had always been an intuitive awareness that repute wasn't an end to anything. It wasn't even strictly speaking a nice term. I saw people around me either tortured by it or the lack of it, a cage closing in from either side. I still lived in that old apartment, which I bought by the end of the second year, the very first of my properties in the city. I was ensconced. The arena was at that time a very… special place to be, Noa, temporarily I can't think of another word for such a phenomenon. No one cared about where you came from so long as you gave them a good game—we all stepped onto that foreign land blank. Granted by youth alone the advantage of psyches, we were unfeeling of loneliness, a chest-thumping generation yet to enter fear. In the center of the arena newly built, everything seemed hazy as if by heat. You are in there. High on all of life's sugar. Unalone. I made some real stand-up friends, some of them my teammates this time and then came the next game I'd see them on the opposite side of the ring. Noa you get a glance of what a person is really made of by being_ present_. You see yourself in your opponents, your entire body shifting tense, engaged in that few minutes in which you're not only allowing a dormant element life and motion, but also redirecting the trajectory of what's coming at you with such a velocity it hisses. The odd part is you don't feel your own movement to be fast or fierce or whatever kinetic terms shouted out by the narrator. No no. What you experience, intra-game, is that water moves in a way that seems to you slower and clearer than usual, and… larger, if that makes sense. They become cooperative, the elements, not only yours but earth and fire also—somehow there's always exactly the right amount of time for you to react. It was, in one word, magic.

You know I seldom talk about my days in Republic City, least of all my career as a pro-bender, reminiscing being the first sign of true decaying and all. I only wish someone had smacked me in the head and warned me about the things I disregarded. I was hooked by the novelty, convinced that Xingyi was all that mattered, taking so much pleasure in the sharp bite of perfecting advanced forms that I'd almost forgotten I could bloodbend—to give you a small idea of just how good it will feel. Then came the part where I began to doubt the necessity of Taiji-based forms. And I paid my dues, believe you me, the semi-final… probably not a story for tonight. Back then there'd been no voice over my shoulder telling me that the ability to control the extensions of the Body required extreme regimens, which have apparently been boring the screeching zest out of you and your brother. It's probably…I should have explained earlier that the "push and pull" is in fact more corporal than elemental. After a certain point it has little to do with water. During this repetitive practice you refine your senses by making adjustments too small to detect, to the point where the Body starts processing what thinking can't, under circumstances where there's no room for conscious action. Without knowing you become an operation of movements, the Mind no longer maneuvers and you learn to trust the Body to steer. The opposite of bloodbending, if it helps. It's ever so slow, this process, but I watch you and I see the changes, Noa—your liking me less is just a price I have to pay. But rest assured I won't let you make the same mistake by neglecting the fundamental. Do me a favor would you young sir? Explain it to your brother, talk some sense into his little head, but you know, in terms he'd understand… who am I kidding, entirely possible that he'd read all about it somewhere.

To an outsider it may all seem to teeter on the edge of cruelty, pushing you to learn new things—here roll this up—while seemingly holding you back, but you're not outside of anything, are you kid? Am I asking too much here? … I'm not sure, Noa. It's becoming increasingly hard to gauge. It's like that part of me was taken along with my one talent, and I admit sometimes I forget you're technically still a child. Am I the only one to blame here? I mean look at you. Hard to believe you eat the same meals every other boy does. Not for long you will become a man, the hardest part of which is having to make a conscious effort every now and then to remember just who you are—you have no idea—for the world isn't of exchanged sob stories and offered handkerchief. Always remember who you are, there's the sentence I'd never in my most hellacious fantasies thought I'd say. One is to flinch at just how obnoxious it sounds. But still I keep saying to you and Tarrlok all the hackneyed things I wish someone had told me: Toughen up, Be a man… from quote the macho and paternal end. Unwelcome to most, I know. I recognize the nuances, the teeny-weeny eye-rolls. You do realize you're doing that not because the words themselves don't make sense but simply because it is _I_ who am saying them. I've had my share of enduring people describing how the absence of parents can mess up a kid, but the fact is there are two kinds of absence, my parents' was the abstract kind, as in they were never there so I wouldn't know the first thing about _losing_ them because there was nothing to lose. Wait this is it? This is all the wine you brought? Fine… fine we don't have much left anyway. I don't know, maybe I'm been around too much, maybe that's… we're always around, me and your mom, who I'm sure has never missed one game of Cuju, no? Not even a real sport, just kicking a ball into an opening… I can imagine how you and Tarrlok have taken our absolute presence and full attention for granted. No matter how loud our voices get we will always seem to you Not There. _Pick up your socks_, _You need a thicker skin for this, Stop giving him wedgies, _that's the furniture talking, it no longer _means_, Noa, as you grow and grow and grow as if in some grisly haste. A vision I catch myself gawking at, literally, from time to time. Has it only been a year, my son? Apparently it takes exactly eleven full moons for you to get where you are, here and now, sitting not far from a mastiff in her blackest out. Understanding every ridge and trickery of the Body without analyzing, this, this thing I'm not even going to ad…address as gift again is more like _a nature to locate_… And I'm sure sooner or later in this not unthreatening evolution of Body you will start to see me less and less of a guide; I'm to shrink entirely into a monotonous voice at the back of your head, meekly tuning itself mute, no?—perhaps already starting? the shrinking and the tuning down? Perhaps only after my total disappearing will you notice my existence, the same goes for your mother, no? It's all right, really, it's not that I'm upset. I'm not. That's just what parents are, not so much as a painting as that sad little pale square on the wall after a painting is removed. Noa I have put up with everyone else's erasing me in this crisscrossedly fucked world. I dealt with that, handsomely I might add. There is now a blank truce between me and what happened sixteen years ago. But to think one day my own son is to forget the person from whom he'd learned everything I mean _Everything_ in the first place… not to you I'm not lying, not once did I do that. But really do you get it, Noa? Do you know how unrecognizable it can be? All these conscious unconscious minutes in which more and more of you impatiently unfolds? Of course you don't. Things just throw themselves upon you more ferociously than I'd ever expected. This clinical arrghtistry. A blank verse in motion. And that ig-inorganic stare you mindlessly employ when accepting the Prey's ceded power, fucking… radiating command…You haven't even set one step outside this puny gooey part of the world and I daresay the world _is_ yours and you will get _bored_, by the sheer distance between you and what it has to offer. Eleven, one year older than the kid who bends only visible water. Plain still dumb water, all probable and movearoundable and interfuckingchangeable. You haven't the faintest idea of the howling trep…uh…trepidation, that one may well move around the world _without_ _being theen_, seen but at all… I should be embarrassed now, shouldn't I? My ungainliness, my articulating things I could only pray will sedimentate, my name new and worse on strange tongues, my face inexplicable nonrefundable each morning—do you know what it's like to _realize your own face_ every single day Noaah. Do you. I'd so stupidly assumed that losing your mind meant you wouldn't be aware of losing your mind. I'd assumed the purer the intention the less you'd get disturbed. I'd pictured being angry as saying what you meant and knowing exactly why you're angry. I should have felt ever so sorry after each full moon when we went home and you just gives me specifically this this near-raphe part of the back of your head and goes with your brother into the bathroom so as to I'm here guessing to properly clean the material-crusted wrinkleless elongating fingers of yours? How about you look at me when I speak to you Noatak? or I'm to prop-propitiate some more is that the new deal now young man? how about instead of giving me the very back of your head every fucking living chance you get you try and _see_ me with due respect as Father and not some desiccated skyscraper-gawking tree, webbed in a triangular horror after nightly sit-ups, staring at the faces in the walls, realizing his own, a man with neutered dreams and maimed visions and perhaps not that much potential to have pissed away in the first place? How about that. Now c'mon let's see you wake up that beast while you sit here all rigor mortis with your hands on your knees and that bovine look in your eyes lowered and fixed on who fucking knows what, let's see what you've got.

* * *

Korra.

No please… I don't want to—

Korra, wake up.

No please… let go…

It's all right, Korra. Look at me: you are safe.

Water.

Here. How are you feeling?

How long was I out?

It's around midnight—I'd say roughly ten hours.

…

How are you feeling? Are you all right?

Why would I… Did you kill it? Did he make you kill it?

Kill what? What are you talking about?

Your father, he made you…

You're burning. Lie down. Here, drink all of it… I heard you screaming earlier, so I came to check on you. My father, you said? Did you see him in the spirit world?

No… no it definitely wasn't the spirit world. I was _you_.

Excuse me?

He just wouldn't stop drinking—his face was all different, and all these talks about pro-bending. I didn't know you learned Xingyi from the same scroll…

That's… impossible.

Then how come I remember when I reached in that thing I thought of this old saying_ The Soul is Bone?_ And, and there were layers… the clutch around was sort of ice in steam? I wanted to say something to him but there was this… this raped feeling in my chest and the worst part was I understood everything he said, and the more I understood the sadder I was, and the sadder I was the more unlikely it was for me to say anything. And those scrolls… where did he get those?

…

Well don't just stare at me like that, say something!

I don't understand. This is not supposed to happen, not this way.

What do you mean _this_ way?

Nothing, nothing, it's the bloodbending's doing…

How is that even possible?

It's… better if we talk about it in the morning. It's been a long day, you need more rest.

No I wanna talk about it now! That talk actually happened, obviously, but why am _I_ living it?

Calm down—

Don't tell me to calm down don't you _ever_ fucking tell me to calm down—

Korra, Korra look at me. I'm surprised as you are.

Oh believe me, _no one_ is as surprised as I am. Who the fuck do you think I am, Tarrlok? I don't need your Sorry, I want to know what the fuck is happening to me!

It's… I never saw it coming, it's never happened the other way around before…

The other way around?

Sometimes…seldom, really, this, transference, interchange… I don't know the exact term for it. But it's always been the other way around, me being in another person's memories. Brief, extremely so, flashes…never specific, nothing in great details… and it only happened _during_ bloodbending, never in dreams…

Well that was certainly no _brief flashes_… Holy shit that man could talk.

That I'm afraid is true. How long did it last?

Wait hold on a second—so you've been inside my head before?

…

You _have_… oh no, oh shit…

Korra, please—

And it never occurred to you to I don't know maybe Tell me about it?

That's not—it happened a long time ago, back in the city, in the arena… I wouldn't expect it to happen when the situation is under control. I'm sorry.

Exactly what part of this situation do you think is _under control_?

You're right; it's clearly way more complicated than I thought it would be.

You think? And what did you see, in my head? _Don't_ bother lying again!

Like I said, they were only bits and chips of images and sounds—

Some would call that _memory_.

I know, please let me finish. It wasn't so much as your memory as your predecessor's—

You saw Aang?

Not him, judging by the enormous dragon and the volcano I assume it was a firebender—

That's Roku… great, I can't see Aang no matter how hard I try, and you're inside _Roku_'s head. That's just fantastic—

It wasn't intentional. Please, Korra, if you would just settle down…

And there I was, still trying to process _Tarrlok's_ little speech, as if I haven't got enough problems of my own… Why did I ever think this would be a good idea… That's it, I'm going home. Come on, move your butt.

Korra it's the middle of the night, there's no ship until morning.

Well then I better start packing. Open those curtains, out of my way.

Korra.

Get off of me.

Korra, my brother's gone.

What, you killed him?

No I didn't _kill_ him. We had a talk after we confirmed your life wasn't in danger. He got home early to get Tonja and Tullik, they're on their way to Pakak now. I stayed where we were to give you a healing session. When I took you back they were already gone.

I thought the carnival wasn't for another five days.

Yes. But we decided it wouldn't be wise for all of us to share a roof after what happened.

We decided, or you decided?

It was actually his idea. He felt very guilty, thought your collapsing was because of him. I assured him that wasn't the case. You heard him when he said his company was only to make sure things didn't get out of control, so you can imagine how terrible he must have felt after losing control himself.

So he just… ran away, when things got awkward… I wonder where he learned that from.

Fair enough.

Oh well, sorry about your childhood. See ya!

Please, Korra, you're still in shock and not thinking clearly. At least wait until your full recovery—you're in no condition for a long trip.

Look me in the eye and see how clearly I'm thinking. Get, your hand, off of me. I _will_ bite you again if I had to.

Clear thinking, I can see that.

Make one more shitty joke and see what happens.

Please: just take a moment before you walk away from this, _please_.

What, you're not keen on walking away from things now?

I understand you're mad at me.

Right, and sure I'd be the only person in the world who feels that way.

I know it has been too much for you, I know, and I'm sorry. But we can figure out a solution, you have to trust me.

And now he wants to figure things out. Well too bad there's nothing _to_ figure out. All seems pretty simple to me. All this lying, I'm just sick of it. Now move your hand or it's coming _off_.

Don't you want to get to the bottom of it? Aren't you curious why this would happen? And the color of your fire?

Nope not really. Weird shit happens all the time, people shoot fire out of their foreheads and eye sockets and shoe laces, I _think_ I can live with some blue fire. And just so you know, I've been very clear from the beginning that I want none of your wacky family business. It's just none of my concern, all right? Can I go now?

We both know that's not true. I remember asking you loud and clear if you feel certain to get involved.

Oh aren't you the memory king. If I knew _this_ is what you meant by getting involved I would've thrown a dictionary at your head. I said yes as in I wanted to learn how to resist bloodbending, not… whatever _this_ is!

This _is_ what involved means, Korra. It's never just bending.

So now you're also _committed_ to things?

How much more of this do I have to take?

Since I'm leaving apparently that'd be the last one. Hope you enjoy the aftertaste. Come on, out of my way.

Korra, _please_.

Don't, touch, me.

…

And don't give me that look. You know what? Don't look at me at all.

You do think I'm a monster.

First, that'd be incredibly sad news for monsters everywhere. And second, you really shouldn't be allowed any eye contact with anybody. That's… aren't you like fifty five or something?

I'm forty three.

Big difference. Move over, stupid big tree. I'm so done with this—get… what are you doing? The fuck are you doing. Hey, hey get up, that's… okay seriously, oh that's not fucked up, that's mature. C'mon, c'mon get up, this is my life now… dude you're forty three, please. Arms off waist. Knees off floor. Get, up.

…

What did you say?

…

Wait are you fucking crying? Oh that's… wow. Honestly. Nice. On the count of three I will be kicking your crotch again. Haven't forgotten how that felt, have we? One. All right now I'm just embarrassed for you. Two? Am I seriously still coun—

Just tell me what to do.

What?

I said tell me what to do. What should I do, right now. Tell me what I can do.

Nothing, al'right? Zilch. Naught. In case you haven't noticed, this day has been fucking _weird_.

I know.

And you people are weird individuals!

I know.

And you, not a nice person!

I've been apprised.

And you talk weird.

Yes.

And you have a weird voice.

Also correct.

And walk weird.

All right.

And… look weird.

If you say so.

And not a decent person.

Not a decent person.

And not a good brother.

The worst.

And are fucked up.

And am fucked up.

And you fucked up.

And I fucked up.

Multiple times, from where I stand.

Every single time.

Can you stop mumbling into my stomach now? Can we pretend to converse like normal human beings?

Sorry.

Here, hold this, do something about your face… So that's your move, you just… kneel, and weep, to keep someone from leaving. That's dignified… Does that always work?

Unprecedented behavior on my part, but there's a first time to everything, I suppose.

You look ridiculous. That was not a good moment for you. Or a good look.

But you are less mad at me.

I'm not mad at you. I'm freaked out by you.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Oh you wanna go there?

Sorry.

Stop apologizing; you guys are extra insufferable when you get all apologetic.

… Sorry.

So what are we doing now. Just sit in this empty house weeping?

Are you hungry?

That Tonja's zucchini bread over there?

Yes, there's some left in the kitchen. I thought you'd be hungry when you wake up. Here.

Now would be a good time to explain all that girlish sobbing.

I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean to disturb your further with my discomposure.

I don't _get_ it… So there are always episodes like that? I mean those were some real tears. I still can't believe it. Just, ready, set, cry… How you managed a bunch of underground fire-eating fundamentalists, I'll never understand.

I'm already mortified. Can we please change the subject?

You really can't stand being alone, can you?

Funnily enough, I've spent most of my life alone. But the idea of being in this house, _now_, all by myself… it just seemed rather overwhelming at the moment.

No shit. So you're just radically lonely and moody.

That would be the one explanation left.

Or you're just weak. Like me.

We _have_ witnessed a rather remarkable quantity of tears for one day. You still haven't answered me—how are you feeling now?

Like shit, but at least the arm doesn't hurt anymore. What _was_ all that? Why did it get so out of hand this time?

From a bodily standpoint, sometimes it will just… give up, without a single sign. I'm sorry, I thought if I went easy on the grip then there'd be no damage. I should have seen this coming.

But how could it just give up on me? I've been training for fifteen years. I'm the Avatar.

Still. A human body. Meat wrapped in a flimsy stocking.

Oh that's poetic. Is that what we all look like to you? Piles of meat walking around making squishy noises?

I was simply stating the fact. And no, that's not at all what you look like to me.

… So did you at least work things out with Tarrlok?

Working things out would be a stretch, but he made his departure in peace.

You mean chickening out.

You have to understand just how sorry he was, how exposed he must have felt under the circumstance. In a strange way, it would take quite a bit of courage to display that kind of vulnerability.

Look who's all sensitive and big-brotherly now, all sobs and apologies. I wonder who pushed him into full frontal crazy in the first place.

I deserve that. But Korra, don't forget he also has a family now. He has people to protect. Though I believe Tonja would feel deeply sorry you couldn't accompany them to the carnival.

I did like _her_. So he's just gonna keep lying to her like nothing happened?

It would seem so.

Isn't this exactly what happened with your parents? Why can't you people just tell the truth, she would have understood.

I wouldn't say _exactly_, but yes, I fully understand the irony of the situation. It's… truly for the best, that she doesn't know.

How? Why does everything have to be this huge secret with you guys? Is there some sort of essential fun about lying your ass off that I'm missing out on?

No, no, you're not missing out… Here, slow down, have some water. Korra, I'm sure after witnessing what happened earlier with my brother, you should know that sometimes words that are meant to express will only invoke.

Why am I still talking to you—of course it would! That's part of the deal—it's not a small thing to handle. But it's not like it's impossible… Hey what's for dinner? I made soup, oh by the way I'm a bloodbender and my father was a former evil boss. But he's dead now so we shall all move on with our lives… Cool? Cool. Don't you see the problem here? You keep all these secrets and you cover one lie with another, and without knowing there's just nothing real left in your life. Is that what you want now? After all that has happened?

It's a bit more complex than that, Korra.

Don't say my name like that, like I'm some disappointing child. I hate it when people do that. And you know it's not that complicated. I'm sure you two are the only people in the whole world who had an awful Daddy, who have made serious mistakes in their lives. Big whoop. He said so himself, Tarrlok, some self-diagnosed _manpain_, this is—do you want to live the rest of your loving what is still there for you to love, or do you want to keep on weeping to yourself in this parade for no one?

And where precisely was all this valor and providence when you were trying to weasel out of your own predicament?

I may be under the weather, that doesn't mean I can't kick your ass again.

Note the tone, I'm not mocking you. You're a constant surprise, Avatar. I wish you had all this wonderful faith in yourself, really.

Faith, you say? Well let's see…there's the crazy ass blue fire; _you_ have probably met Avatar Aang more times than I have. I'm _pretty_ faithful that all my friends are scared shitless by my very existence but doing a terrific job hiding it. There are currently who knows how many bloodbenders in the city for me to deal with—sure you've seen what wonderful progress I've made in that area. All these could be a piece of cake if I was able go into the Avatar State at will, and whenever I do glow up I'd start _killing_ people, as in making them stop living, Noatak, including your former subordinates, even if they're working _with_ me… If any one of these problems can be solved by honesty or making friendship bracelets or having faith in myself, I'd instantly turn into the sweetest most lovable person in the world, like you wouldn't believe. And yet it doesn't work quite like that, does it? How did he so eloquently put it? Broken people staring blankly at each other? Well at least you have each other to stare _at_, if I'm to stare at wounds I caused I'd be thinking corpses all day. But sure, I'll just have more faith in myself.

… I don't know what to say now, I'm sorry.

There's nothing to say. This just isn't really our day, all things considered.

You must have so many questions for me.

I figure it's enough probing for one day. And I thought of it, you know, before I passed out, it's all in the past, anyway. Plus there are so many things to ask I don't even know where to start.

Well then, if ever you get curious.

That's what you dad said… Sorry, that was awful, I mean he… that's actually what he said…

I know. It's all right. My brother was perhaps right: some complexes are better accepted. I'm very sorry you had to see all this.

I only have one question for now.

Yes?

Did you kill it? the mastiff?

No, we didn't kill any of those animals. Didn't make it any less terrible, though.

I feel dizzy now. Who would have thought being dragged into someone else's head could be overwhelming.

You should get more rest. I'll put a bucket by the bed, in case you feel sick again.

Noatak.

Yes?

What are we going to do now?

Well, the bloodbending must stop, that's for sure.

Actually—

Korra.

But you don't know—

No.

I mean what if—

I said no. I'm done hurting you. We'll figure something out tomorrow. For now you just need to rest. I'll be downstairs if you need anything.

What if those… scenes, come back again?

…

…

Noatak?

I don't know… I—I really don't know now.

Make fists with my feet?

That would be a start.

Then maybe kick his ass? I mean that's highly unlikely, but if I could?

Even better. Good night, and good luck.

Noatak?

…

The hands won't leave the heart. I think we're gonna be okay.

* * *

Two hours later. Korra sits up in a jolt. She stays on the bed, counting the brown objects in Noatak's bedroom. She gets twelve, book covers not included. She's the two hundred and eighty-sixth Avatar, she's told. She has killed thirty six people, partners included. She opens the curtains: the night is under a sloppy dominance by the sun. She sits back on the bed, focusing breathing on Dantian and failing the rhythm. She opens his closet. The word triangular keeps shooting back and forth through her head, a long-unwashed tableau—Yakone keeps looking down at his pedant watch and coughs unseasily into his glove, Noatak is rolling up the scroll in an impeccable filial piety, and the mastiff's subconjunctival hemorrhage is a dewy red full and viscous against the snow, its mouth extended but not in a genuine way, it seems, more like a veteran agony practiced for the grand show, the blood invited goes Wosh wosh hush. Someone on the wall has suggested If you see a sea of fire, plunge into it. She picks a shirt, and opens her own luggage.

A few weeks ago, while packing, Avatar Korra decided to bring two brassieres with snaps in the front—her eighteenth birthday gift from Asami, as a joke, Korra had thought—she does not know why, nor has she ever worn them before sneaking out of the compound. She stares at them in turn with a silent ferocity people save only for things that will never return. It takes her quite some time in the bathroom to take the bindings off. The hardwood stairs are cold against her bare feet. She has buttoned his shirt all the way to the top.

On the living room couch he appears sound asleep. She looks down at him and then at herself, the awareness that she is _in here_ becoming a whole new kind of awareness. She's realizing how she's standing and how chilling the air is between her bare legs and how absurd this would look through a window. In her head Dad is putting a hand on Mom's shoulder, Bolin talking to Asami in his bright and earthly way, their faces in and out of focus but all seem somewhat _glad_ that she isn't there.

It isn't even her decision to kneel beside him, it's simply the weight on her back, another treachery of her body she is certainly getting used to. Still, after all this time, there is more power to it than she could ever expect. All history present: between his eyebrows she can tell the lines from aging are yet to catch up with those of frequent frowning. His chest barely heaves; unlike her, even in his sleep he is breathing _correctly_. She wonders if he also dreams every night and if so, how many faces he'd have to face per dream. In the near-light of the living room, a thread of decent sunlight, bent by time, falls pliably off his earlobe and lands on his neck, where she spots a bite mark, faint and persistent near his ear.

So there it is, the scar, not going anywhere, she can't decide if it's because he left it that way or because things just stop healing at a certain age. _This is not desire_, she bends over with a languidness she knows isn't necessary but seems right now intensely meaningful. Then presses her lips, softly this time, on the spot. There could be no mistaking in what she's doing now. She pauses for a beat in which everything hangs there and then feels a hand on her arm. No room to back off. She puts her free hand around the other side of his neck. He slowly sits up and takes her chin in his right hand—she knows he isn't dextral—to kiss her like it's something they have long ago agreed upon, and by the time he eases her onto the couch her tears are running into both ears, a spot on her neck where he is less kissing than grazing with his stubble hurting to no small degree. She can try, for even just a second, to imagine what is going on inside his head—she just doesn't want to.

Whereupon their lips glue so tight he has fully become her breath. She's embarrassed not because of the tiny moist noises she's making but because she is the only one making them. So she pulls him close until no light can shine between them, hooking her fingers over the ridges of muscles along his spine as if she's offended by his not being as responsive—considering just how painfully easy, even for her, to administer affection in this sort of situation. But it's too hard to break the focus. She can see him this time: there is in his eyes an extrorse avidity. This she does recognize. But no way he'd hurt her this time. _He wouldn't dare_.

His touch, though, is somewhat _less_ than it had been when he had the mask on. It feels… neutral. _Or maybe it's me_, she thinks, _maybe I've been the problem all this time._ Really there can't be a worse time to also realize that the words she can't usually utter without quoting or grimacing represent the parts of her that are probably already exhausted before they even get the chance to be felt. Ensuing are tiny stabs of logic: if you haven't felt something for this long then you just have to consider the possibility you've lost it; that certain capacities you don't deserve simply fall off of you like dead skin off cuticles.

But it is also the logic by which instincts despise logic. _Does it even matter who's the supplicant now?_ She presses her tongue against the scar that now seems a legacy, and squeezes her legs to take him in even deeper, harvesting the details of him by filling her hands with his hair, arching her back into his embrace. He whispers a question to her. _No, it's not, _she says pulling back a little and unbending her legs, her eyes not leaving the middle distance between him and the ceiling, _just make it stop._

It feels so close to desire, and is not. It's about a certain moment that she can be thoroughly convinced she is what he sees and he all she is seeing; that a voice in him must be vacuumed of everything but _her_; that it is possible to make a home out of someone (both on the floor now, the clasp of her bra knocking on the floor, again and again, a tiny blunt sound). That she must, as always, play both offense and defense just so she won't dissolve into the bolster inside her that's been supporting something heavier than her. That he might have only been a name. That it is all right to just be a name. That she needs his fear and closeness and recognition and condescension, all at once, to fill up some parts of her while starving the rest. That he is an instrument by which she can execute compassion and selfishness at the same time as she finally shuts her eyes at the sight of his, shutting him out, her hand covering the hand covering hers as if pushing her under a sepia surface right before ladling her back up and serving her to something gigantic. After she cleans herself up with his shirt, Korra touches the floor with her knuckles, wondering if there's blood even though there is no reason. When she stands up, he puts a hand around her ankle, so insignificantly. She instantly knows what he's about to ask. But before she can answer, he lets go without a word. It's harder to leave his perimeter now—her legs are not exactly what they once were. She goes back upstairs, not really sure if she is still awake, just like three years ago. _Because what older people are trite and true about_, she thinks lying there staring at the finally faceless ceiling, _is that you will make the same mistakes over and over again without engineering towards them_. Sleep comes like a mist numbing her flank. His heat is fading away, but when she closes her eyes she can still feel his contour echoing hers, and this constancy alone grants her rest.


	4. Up, Truthbender

Up, Truthbender

I am destined to be lost, definitively, and only a few instants of me will be able to survive in the other one. Little by little I am yielding him everything, although I am well aware of his perverse habit of falsifying and exaggerating. —Jorge Luis Borges,_ Borges and I_

/*/

Tarrlok suspects he's the only person who can tell when a silence is changing into another texture; to a trained eye the transition would seem operatic. The sky practically an abstraction, no air moves in it. Through a vision gone opaque with faint tears and white breath, Noatak walks up to them and takes Korra from his arms. She is a lot heavier than she looks, her odor less than pleasant after all the vomiting and crying. Amid her troubled breathing, Tarrlok is reached by a new level of focus, and the ghost of his earlier outburst struggles to burn it away, leaving only an intolerable acuity of detail he has once experienced during a brief, bumpy affair with opium, offered by Ursa and therefore approved by Noatak. It was right after he approached pubescence, on a day that was nothing like this. The psychedelic accentuation of the surroundings launched its assault by sending his eyes upward into their slack white again and again until it could be known, beyond sight and sound, that the world around him was nothing he could ever call doubt, until he understood more than all else that the banian behind them was busy with noises of grackles coming and going and crickets stridulating, the damp verdure of the famous Ember Island soil beneath his hands, richer still in late summer. Until this day he can remember lying there, feeling the shape of each blade of grass against his bare elbows and thinking, _This is our crude approximation of a good life_, in the meantime possessing soberly the notion—even as his fingertips were both farther and farther from his control—that he was, wholly and unrepentantly, his own man. He remembers Ursa lying next to him and popping one of her intra-high questions after inhaling, arm-over-face, in all her languid sixteen-year-old glory, something that went Guys do you think it's harder to converse with strangers because you don't have the exchanged information of someone you know well and know know you well as some sort of conversational safety net or simply because we most of us humans just cannot live with the pressure of projecting our insecurities onto the subject we are about to proffer and consequently rendering the subject its own counterweight even before you utter the very first words and so on and so forth until whatever topic you originally plan to propose sounds in your head so hackneyed or desperate that they could only end up reflecting the very insecurities you're trying to hide by initiating a conversation? To which Noatak hummed softly and placed a hand on her stomach and exhaled palely into the space overhead, eyes shut. At which precise moment the sun reached the right angle to render her auricle translucent. Now Tarrlok wonders why this is the way memory works, out of nowhere, embroidered in rich reveries that are themselves irrelevant. As Korra's weight is being demanded and entrusted, her nose starts bleeding again; at this Noatak looks down, the trickle rises and contains itself; whereas Tarrlok is again getting everything: the light film of sweat on her forehead curling the soft fuzz by her hairline into tiny half circles, the shape of her bindings distinguishable to his left palm through Tonja's sienna dirndl, and finally, decocted from the small sounds and adjustments of Noatak placing her atop his parka laid by the side of the road as well as the vacancy shortly thereafter, the texture of a brand new silence.

It's only that each moment happens twice. When Noatak eventually starts talking, it can't be told if he's doing it quietly or not. The expanse of snow sucks all resonance, everything sounds enclosed and flatly intimate. "Before you jump to any conclusions, this is not your fault; she's only exhausted, no real damage. You know how it can be."

"I know it's not my fault." Tarrlok squares his shoulders. "The onus is largely on you, partly on her. Very little to do with me."

"Awfully confident for someone who spent the last half hour apologizing."

"And yet I just realized again I've been feeling guilty for something you did."

"Still—_part of a larger rhythm that precludes solutions_? Quite poetic a summary to the situation."

More peculiar that Tarrlok can't even tell if he's speaking loudly himself. "Are you mocking me? Honestly, I wouldn't."

Noatak doesn't respond to this but starts regarding him in a distinctive way, his voice carrying the air of making a careless pronouncement. This is nothing Amon, but something exclusively, Tarrlok thinks, for family. He had spoken like this a few times when they were children, purposefully skipping a syllable here and there to make himself sound less demure and, if there is any knowledge to it, Tarrlok knows this to be his brother at his most serious.

"Go home, take Tonja and Tullik and leave. Fast as you can manage."

Tarrlok can't determine if he's being mocked again. This must be what a rodent in a cage would feel when regarded blandly by someone in a white coat.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me perfectly."

"And why would I be leaving? It's five more days to the carnival."

"Forget, about, the carnival." It becomes obvious Noatak is chewing the inside of his cheek. "Don't overpack—take the cash in the attic, you know where—"

"Is this some kind of punishment? for what I said in that barn? Because even for you this is ridiculous—"

"North is not the option." At the same ambiguous volume, his voice eclipses Tarrlok's completely. "Safer staying in places not too secluded. Coastal metropolis, if possible. Identity policies of inland towns are much more robust these days."

"I swear if you don't tell me what's going on…"

Dismissing him with a raised hand, Noatak scoops up some snow and applies it to the back of his neck. "I want you to know I know what your reaction will be. It's not even real understanding I'm asking for, just a bit of hush, some neutral, static minutes, for me to _explain_," he says with more and more difficulty, almost whispering in the end. "The Canines are here."

Tarrlok's face stays the same. Indeed the minutes ensuing are neutral and static: the concept has been so persistently concluded in his mind that it's a mental stretch to remember the Canines as a group of people referring to themselves as tapered fangs rather than large canids. Noatak too holds his expression in place and takes a delicate step forward. Tarrlok steps back from him and puts his hand over his forehead. In front of his eyes, dots hastily linking themselves. A step after this and a step after that, all leading to the same end, until it becomes physically painful to stumble over further realizations that he has to grab Noatak by the collar, at the same time recognizing the futility of the gesture. As some kind of droll nod to their childhood: neither was averse to kicking and punching—

"Let me finish." Noatak clutches his wrists and lets go of the wooden one so quickly as if burnt. "They are here for the Avatar, okay? It doesn't concern you or your family."

"What?" Adjusting. An effete voice in his head mumbling _All this fucking theatre_.

"They want Korra in Pakak, the Canines," repeats Noatak, "and me to be the one bringing her there safely, that's all. No one is in danger—"

Tarrlok laughs mirthlessly. "_Cash in the attic_? Does that sound to you like something people say when there's no danger?" He rubs one side of his face vigorously and watches Noatak half-embrace himself, again, in that slightly effeminate matter. "You told me you didn't have anything to do with those people anymore!"

"I don't—"

"I wasn't done talking! Quite literally one of the first things I asked you, right after we decided to move back, was if you were still entangled in any of your old business that could make your old acquaintances track us down. You looked me in the eye and said no. _Twice_. Remember?"

"Yes and I was being honest. I wasn't and am not one of them." "Well then what's all this for," says Tarrlok, miming servility, "_if of course you don't mind me asking_—"

"I have no idea," says Noatak and, as if noting how it sounds, instantly adds, "but since they came all the way to the North, I suspect it has something to do with either the portal or the chief himself."

"—and under my nose, as always." Tarrlok has stopped listening halfway through and started talking until their voices end at the same time. "Just lovely. When? When did this happen? Your little deal."

"Deal isn't a good term. Shortly after her arrival I was approached by one of the field operatives and—"

"How was that even possible?" Resolved not to let Noatak finish one complete sentence, while expending energy on reminding himself _I was promised we would get through this, promised and promised_, until the notion begins to sound jejune in his own head. "We spent that whole night arguing."

"It was the next morning," says Noatak after making sure Tarrlok is provisionally empty of further questions, "in that short window after you left for the market and before she woke up. Look, we haven't the time to sort out details; it's only temporary, this is just something I have to do…"

"You have to—" Tarrlok touches his eyebrow and then his nose and then his eyebrow. "So let me put this in inflexible unalterable terms—"

"Tarrlok."

"—terms so clear even you can't bend, assuming we're speaking the same language and that what's left of my auditory sense is somewhat functioning and yours still immaculate—"

"Tarrlok."

"You accepted an assignment from a clandestine service full of top-of-the-game nut-jobs you'd sworn you had nothing to do with, to give away the girl who trusts you with her whereabouts—in the process of which exposing my entire family—the most dazzling part being you have no earthly idea what this is all about—"

"You have to say it like that—"

"—so you do realize how this sounds. We do speak the same language. Did share the same days—_years_—virtually packed with chance after chance to tell and tell and tell."

"It's only been—"

"Just answer this: Are you hit in the head?"

Noatak mumbles something, through the faint ringing the best Tarrlok can make of is "this puerile."

"Well here's a real one for you: if it's _Korra_ that they want and it's Korra that _they_ want," asks Tarrlok, his voice cracking and faraway to himself, "why don't they just ask her when she was in the city? Why follow her all the way here?"

Noatak, silent, rises and falls on his toes. Tarrlok takes several deep breaths and looks up: most of the stars seemed to be burning with steadiness; after registering all the constellations available, there is no choice but to look back down.

"Our last chance, this used to be," he murmurs, suddenly exposed to the possibility that he's said more words in the last two hours than he did perhaps in six months. Not necessarily the last six but certainly some consecutive, inert days where he had no idea he was living that very last chance. Then, the feeling akin to staring at a word for too long and witnessing the word mutate into an entirely foreign thing to the eye. Only it's with the texture of his own voice, pulled downstream into another timbre. And yet he cannot stop, nothing now stands between his bare thoughts and his lips: "They want _you_ also. And Korra has been searching for you…" Sucking his teeth. "I thought you two had something going on… thought you actually spared something resembling true affection for this girl. So fucking obvious it seemed."

There is a decidedly funny look on his brother's face, only just converted from something of which Tarrlok has failed to catch a glimpse. "What," says Noatak dully, "you mean between me and the privileged little brat who ruined more than twenty years of my work."

"I don't…" Some new silence, looking around, and reclaiming the necessity of being the pissed yet still pragmatic. Somehow, being the less crazy one has never in his life carried such priority. "Why can't they just knock on the door and ask you two to go with them. Whatever happened to _conversing_!"

"And you think she'd just comply. Really." No matter how hard he's trying, Noatak keeps sounding a notch more together. "Strangers showing up at the front door whose owners also happen to be practically strangers who have both at some point succeeded in subduing her against her will?" Noatak starts pacing, first with his hands behind his back and then, as if suddenly aware of how it might look, back to folding his arms, and says, "The entire point is to make sure she thinks she _wants_ to go there with me and keep learning whatever it is she believed she could master in ten days. And it was all—" exhaling as if disposing something uninvited; looking at some spot beyond where Korra lies— "it was all good; _we_ were… we were _good_. Until you had to blow up back there."

Tarrlok's laugh sounds hysterical even to himself. _You're still the less insane one_. "Oh and this is my fault now."

With raised eyebrows Noatak displays How are you even asking. "For one thing, I doubt she'll wish to extend her stay after that epic monologue of yours. This could have all been avoided. And now I'll have to figure out a way to keep her here after she wakes up…"

Tarrlok gestures faintly as in Can you even hear yourself, while Noatak continues, "You should know by now that she's not to be forced into anything, by _anyone_. Not to mention that she can fully access the Avatar State—"

"Fully access? She can't even control it, she can't even control the color of her fire!"

"All this only makes things worse—she might not have realized it yet but she's a legitimate deterrence to all, have I not warned you the other day?"

"Oh yes, _this_ you told me, this you chose to reveal. Forgive _me_, then, for assuming you know what you're doing." Lowering his voice and making fists with his toes. "What a precious piece to complete the puzzle. What formidable intellect."

"It won't be long," says Noatak more to himself as he finally stops pacing. "I can fix all this."

"All _what_? How? By running errands for the assembly of the demented?"

"If you have to call it errands… yes, for now, at least. They must possess information about her conditions that I don't." At some point Noatak must have stopped restraining himself from the Amon voice, which is so discordant with his whole look Tarrlok has to look away. "You gauge this now, Tarrlok—and maybe even the entire picture if you ever get a grip again—the sheer amount of _knowledge_ they must have, the _resources_, and tell me that alone isn't enough reason to do what they asked of me."

"Sure… sure, a peerless cross-border intelligence agency requesting that the off-the-grid Avatar be secretly transferred without her own knowledge, by the former leader of the Equality Campaign," says Tarrlok, his smile growing wilder. "What could possibly go wrong. I'm going to take a leap here—this is all Ursa? Granted I haven't seen her in twenty years but the whole thing sure fucking smells like her." He spins and shouts into the woods on the other side of the road. "_Ursa_? You here, princess? Care to catch up face to face?"

"Stop it, you're embarrassing yourself."

"You think I care?" Another frantic turn."_Ursa! Get out!_"

"Listen to me!" flashes Noatak and reconstitutes himself, gently clasping his hands together. "We're not being followed now. She's not here. So far I've only talked to one of her lieutenants. Basic ground work, pinpointing and probing, does this sound like something she'd bother to do personally?"

Tarrlok says amiably "You honestly expect me to believe anything coming out of your mouth now."

"Why would I tell you any of this if we were followed? Don't you think I would have noticed if a living breathing human being is lurking nearby?"

"Where, then, where _is_ she?" Tarrlok asks, and Noatak's hand on his shoulder is at once batted off. "I never asked what happened between you two but judging from what you had been doing in the city, it couldn't have ended with you driving off into the sunset."

"It didn't. Doesn't matter, though. It's nothing to do with our current situation."

Tarrlok releases another great flare of laughter and asks eagerly, "Is she trying to kill you? Tell me she's trying to kill you."

"If she was I'd be dead by now."

"Well that's just downright disappointing."

Noatak says nothing and puts his hands on his hips, reminding Tarrlok, absurdly, of their mother. For too long he's been waiting for a hook, this would do.

"You make it sound like you're coerced into this…" presses Tarrlok, this time properly furious without the unhinged jollies. It does occur to him for a second that Noatak's gesture could be inadvertent—_so what_. "You _want_ this, just admit it. Whatever it is they're planning for the girl, you _crave_ to be part of it!"

"That's flatly simplifying."

He speaks right over Noatak, bent on not getting punctuated: "All these months of sitting around, helping with the diaper changing, the three o'clock feeding, all this peace and fucking ennui—you must be just dying, for so something like this to happen… yes? It doesn't concern me or my family? Guess what, asshole, when a bunch of psychopaths start hovering over my house, where _my_ wife and son live, and requiring something from my sociopathic brother, it kind of—_kind_ of—concerns me perhaps just a little."

Somewhere during this Noatak has stopped calling softly his name. Tarrlok's voice sounds to his one ear like that of a much older and less fit man. "Did they even make you a deal? that field operative? Did you hesitate for even one second?" The mucoidal whines of someone with a life sentence applying for parole and knowing perfectly the chance. "Because all my money is on you're so keen to rejoin them they didn't even have to ask you twice."

"They made no such statement, and they certainly have no such intention. I already told you, it is not a deal. Call it a moment of daffiness, a naive itch for closure… whatever upsets you least. Bottom line, you know Ursa and she knows you, whatever happened between the two of us doesn't change the fact that you two were friends. She would never hurt you."

"Still defending her, I see. You two were so made for each other. Nothing she does lacks what you wouldn't." No intonation in his voice, he is addressing quietly something behind Noatak, who seems oddly flattered. "So what, for the last couple of days they've been spying on us through binoculars and keeping tabs?"

"That's not how they operate."

"Yes, I forgot the almighty rows of fangs were too sharp and elite for such banality."

"Believe me, this is not a dangerous operation, Tarrlok. From what I know so far, it won't even involve any violence."

"Why that's a fucking soothing piece of information." Tarrlok nods and laughs and wheel his eyes queasily, all at the same time. "You can't even _name_ what it is! What happened to you, anyway? What happened to your crippling fear of being the bully? That compulsive need of being protective has always been a pain to live with but at least you _considered_. Reasons used to be a part of you. Has it been so long it just completely rotted away?"

"Whatever makes you feel easier." Noatak cocks his hands, breathing fully into the cold. "To be perfectly honest, I'd like for you to come with me, with _us_—" ignoring a large sniff— "but of course it doesn't seem likely, now that you are very much the family man."

A sustained pause, Tarrlok can't snap for he detects no bitterness, only a digressive, barely veiled joviality in Noatak, who is saying, "She chose me, you see? _Me_. It's a thing… to be chosen by her."

Tarrlok turns to look at Korra and realizes he has no idea which "she" he is referring to. Summer here is no more than a silence blanket of snow, as supposed to its roaring wrath; beyond the blanket there is nothing to look at. Meanwhile the not knowing where even to rest his eyes grates Tarrlok more than he's willing to acknowledge. Noatak says, "We could have accomplished something, Ursa and I… and who knows—" turning to Korra— "maybe once again with someone in this line. I know it all sounds asinine, considering I'm in the utter dark myself, but at least it would be _something_."

Tarrlok speaks under his breath: "I can't even tell if you're scared of her or still in love with her."

"That's a categorical neither."

"And same goes for you and the Avatar. One minute you speak as if you loathe her so—marginally more understandable, given the circumstances—and the next as if some sort of new chapter is destined to be written by the two of you."

"Could be both. Strikes me as high strangeness, too."

"She was right, though."

"Pardon?"

"Ursa, she was right about us from the beginning." Tarrlok pinches the flesh between his thumb and index finger, for the headache. "I don't know if she told you this, it was one of the rare moments she talked to me without your presence, and I knew on the spot that this woman would understand how every driven gear of your head fit its driving gear better than I ever would." Scratching his nose with his pinkie, somehow catching the effeminate manner. "She told me we were not very good persons, you and me."

"You do extrapolate." Noatak has on his face the kind of look a surgeon would have when told by a valet how to properly hold a scalpel. "When was she ever that blunt."

"I believe the exact words were _You two aren't very good persons_. Blunt enough for you? Can I finish now?"

His glare doesn't cause a ripple on Noatak. "Apologies."

"Well, she did add a whole speech to annul the momentary fluffiness." Tarrlok turns away from Noatak before the subtlest cheer emerges on that face. "At the time neither of us was on anything, I naturally tuned out at most of her words, she every bit as eloquent. But then, the words that stuck: she said despite we weren't 'very good'—and there really is no way to accentuate how ingenuous and plain the way she stated something that later turned out to be too ingenuous and plain to polish over—she told me despite that, we were radically different persons. Where it had sounded superfluous from the very beginning, it was indeed the one concrete thing that can be said about us, if you think about it."

Tarrlok waits but this seems to have exhausted whatever Noatak has to say, so he carries on, "She went on about how this difference was what had interested her the very moment she saw the two of us standing next to each other, after the match and before all conversations floated, that between the two of us, you were the one without even the integrity to be the sort of not-very-good person who worries occasionally about being good. It was amazing, she thought, to see someone that comfortable in what he lacked."

With all the air rushing from him, Tarrlok lets the red spots dance on the fluttering black of his eyelids. More deep breaths, and then: "And you just went ahead proving every bit she said to be true. Now, go ahead and get yourself in the right corner, explaining a narrative in delicate terms, intellectualizing a motive until the cows come home… whatever it is that we both obsessed over and considered ourselves so good at, I'm sick of it. We're not in one of your rallies, Noa. We were hardly any good at the deals we did choose to plunge ourselves into. In hindsight the moves were so hilariously clumsy. Unprepared."

Another neutral silence. Noatak's smile says he's doing so in spite of himself. Tarrlok says, "You think what you're doing to the Avatar is any different from what you did to me, from how you did _everything_? Sure enough, I'm not the most qualified one out there to define the line between solicitously possessive and outright creepy, nor do I have the silver tongue to talk you out of this."

Noatak hunches, withdrawing his upper torso somehow, and says It would appear so.

"But once more I do feel obligated to be that annoying person to remind you, that this girl has suffered enough, that the world will survive or crumble down with or without your interfering, and by volunteering to be a part of this you're about to be involved in a series of irreversible events—a matter between two nations, at least from what little I've heard… I'm actually talking you _into_ it, am I not?" Receiving a dry chuckle from Noatak. "The Canines know damn well how your muscles flex, Noa, no matter how smooth you make this sound. _They got your number._ And they won't blink twice to take sweet advantages of it. But this—" vaguely gesturing at Korra— "this is just plain _wrong_; you know it, and that I know you know it." He looks into his brother's eyes at last. "Shall I continue trying, now, summoning whatever is left of your conscience."

This may be the first time in decades they stand like this, with full eye-contact and utter privacy. The changes of Noatak's visage are revelatory: the sheer prettiness has shaded into something calculatedly fine, something Tarrlok knows women will like and had spent so much time annealing himself into. There was a time in their childhood when he was convinced he would grow precisely into his brother's clean and seamless kind of beauty; the possibility had made him despair, but years later, when he was finished settling into a whole different look, Tarrlok was struck by a faint frustration. Now he finally finds himself with an easy distain for Noatak's physical characteristics—even with the ones they share. It needs no reasons, this distain. His thin nostrils, his thick and slightly unsymmetrical eyebrows, the way his jaw squares when he grits his teeth, among other details Tarrlok has unconsciously catalogued. And yet, come to think of it, the only things that have truly disturbed him are the pure _layers_ of his brother: Noatak at age seven, at fifteen, at nineteen and forty. It's hard to keep track and respond to this current one, long haired and clean shaved, in his eyes, the distinctive sparks that belong to either the greatest visionaries or the critically deluded. Either way, the final effect is an unsurpassable ugliness. And Tarrlok finds the natural urge to reconstruct the chain of logic, as people often do when disillusioned: maybe the bizarre visual mutation caused by long stares happens to beautiful things also… maybe it's the mutual distress that have distorted his vision…

He blinks, looks briefly away and back. No—still a liar, a fraud. Still too ugly.

"You were both right," Noatak says, after a small sniff that indicates no contempt, only confusion. "I've been waiting for this to happen for too long, at the same time avoiding regarding any of my failures." Shrugging as if the conversation is about which program to listen to over dinner. "But my whole life has indeed led inexorably to the moment when Korra knocked on the door. I can't explain this peculiar urge identical to what I'd felt the day we ran away. I did it for me, though, and there you have it. Left home because _I_ was done, and convinced myself it was for us—all the while letting you carry the guilt for two."

_Stay sober. This is but another trick of his._ "So what it this, a cry for help? Surely you can do better than that," says Tarrlok, reflecting unwillingly that he's always enjoyed the rare moments of being the Bigger Man. It's so hard to be Big alone, _Bigger_ however is a hair more reachable. "You know you need help—you know precisely which parts of your mind have festered, better than I do. So what are we achieving here, besides boring each other silly with all this popular psychology garbage?"

The laughter carries generosity. "On a premise that there _is_ something to help me, or stop me, at one point or another. Safe to say we're both beyond that kind of innocence." Picking a piece of lint off his shoulder. "If you still can**'**t tell, the only thing I'm good at is being _engaged_. It would be a great stretch here to include even the synonyms of Truth, but if you're bent in a lie and simultaneously bending the very lie… What of it, then? What of the willed lack of lucidity, in the nature of the business you're engaged in?"

His face impossible to interpret at this moment, Noatak continues, "On the other hand things did change—for once I'm going in blind and see where it takes me." He casts a look at Korra, his voice gentle without being soft. "Planning, no matter how punctilious, had only taken me so far. And since we all fail, all the time, in this vast, systematic indifference, it may well be refreshing what happens when others redirect you when and how to fail. Someone you trust, if ever fortunate."

_And you trust Ursa, once again, over me. _

Gazing somewhere else and exhaling with care, Noatak says, "This life could be any life. Could be anyone's life. So what if I'm careless—what if I take a step into the dark instead of what I always believed was the exit?"

A long, mutual hesitation hovered above them until Noatak says Talk to me, I can't tell if you're still angry.

"Why would I be angry." Tarrlok is a quiet and thinking face. "Just wondering how you managed to make _that_ sound reasonable."

Noatak flexes his hands, seemingly chilled and unwilling to comment on the chill, and says, "I tried, living like this. Assiduously. In ways we both know he would have abominated—waking up at the same hour and knowing the substance of the next meal… Days too disconnected from everything else to feel real."

"I suppose time is a relative experience: entirely different for the trapped and the leisured." Tarrlok isn't sure whether he's saying this out of pure spite. "Nothing beats waking up resenting a handicapped guy and wishing yourself elsewhere, yes?"

"I gave it my best shot, Tarrlok," he whispers. "Not that I didn't enjoy it at all. It's just not—"

"Not in you to do it. Of course."

"Searched within and it's not there, even though my convictions have been learning how to die since the day I brought you back. At times they still make a grab for me. Pull me down, hold me there. An unpaid debt, otherwise meaningless."

"Not to offend, but I tend to tune out every time I hear that word." "Which one?" "Conviction," Tarrlok says in the most comical way manageable. "Heard it too often running for office, heard it too often later still. Never meant it when _I_ said it, so if you don't mind: Just exactly what are they, your _con_victions?"

Noatak looks right into the scars on his face and doesn't hesitate. "At this juncture? That life wants me, and I, much to my own surprise, want life back." Again, the near-bovine serenity on his face. "Earlier you condemned me for not letting go. Answer me this, then: How could I."

Again, Tarrlok tries several times but only manages to murmur the beginning of a word—he has expected another stunt answer regarding something like the abuse of power; then again, an unconscious Korra would have negated the entire point. As Noatak goes on, "I don't know how the idea has asserted itself and grown to be so mighty—considering how hard it is to live with it in the first place." As if suddenly shy, looking down and addressing his words to his own shoes. "I'm actually fine with not achieving. Can't say I did well not letting what drove him drive me in turn, but I gave it a conscious effort." He makes a noncommittal sound, crouching beside Korra and putting a head on the side of her neck, speaking over Tarrlok's mild chuckle: "It has to be something beyond the banal fear of death and such. Let's say it's about companionship. Or rather, the errors in it."

Tarrlok looks at both of them and says cheerfully Thank you. It warms my heart like you wouldn't believe.

"Don't be a child, you know what I mean."

Korra's breathing appears even. More peaceful than Tarrlok's own. "I should feel sorry to her, no?" he blurts. "Or for her, at least?" It's easier to believe he understands what's right from wrong better than Noatak ever would, but in his mind the world has become the map of the world, everything the outline of the thing. He knows how to navigate himself into the right kind of guilt, but cannot find the location. He knows how to talk about morals but cannot sense the shape and temperature of being moral. Is this how his brother feels all the time?

"And you find no such feeling," says Noatak.

Tarrlok mimes incapability, seeing no point in sounding virtuous now. "Tried. The only thing I feel sorry for is how easy it is to feign penitence."

"The kind of penitence you felt on the boat?"

Tarrlok has yet to find out descriptions for the feeling of wooden fingers on pink facial tissues. Which is touching which. "Can we not…"

"Certainly," says Noatak. This strikes Tarrlok as strangely generous, considering how aggressively he usually pushes the topic, and the fact that this may well be his last chance to stab at it.

"Not afraid to tell you, I don't know what I'm going to do with this one yet…" His hand still on Korra's neck as colors return to her cheeks, Noatak looks into the vacuous snow. "Like I said, it's all companionship, and therein lies the rub: I spent most of my life alone and I haven't the first idea of how to be alone and _well_." Brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as Tarrlok looks away. "I started everything with someone by my side. You, when we first left this place, Ursa, through all things disjointed and painfully fun, and later, my Lieutenant. None of which ended well, I'm aware, but at least it'd all been with _someone_, in every fetal stage, someone new and committed as I was."

"To be fare I was never committed as you were in leaving," says Tarrlok, wanting to cut him open somehow, no matter how futilely. "This I didn't realize right away—it goes without saying we left this place because my fear and your hatred for the persecution of his presence, but my portion of fear was nothing compared to what I came to feel for you."

Noatak doesn't seem taken aback at all. The way his forehead is ever so slightly scrunched says he is merely absorbing information and adding it to himself.

"For a while his absence was the greater torment," says Tarrlok, shrugging fretfully, "the shadows sniffing and growling every now and then, but soon you proved that your resourcefulness was something to be dreaded with much more intensity. I was _stuck_ with you, for the very same reason I ran away from him. Only by then I was so much more scared that the word fear wouldn't even suffice. After all, one can eventually wake up from a nightmare, eschew the hulking demons of domestic life, or even overthrow a tyrannical monarch, but how does one begin to outgrow a distorted love?"

Only when Tarrlok has to stop because he no longer detects air around him does he realize Noatak is crying. In an automatic and vanquished manner, as if defending himself from something far more gigantic than Tarrlok can possibly imagine.

This is the second time he has seen tears on Noatak's face, and he can't give an account for why any of this is happening, not without Noatak himself narrating through all the years they spent apart. Though it's clear that both of them are tied up in incommunicable grief for two different sets of memories, some of which surely have overlapped, but the portion is overall too feeble compared to what's been concealed (purposefully and malignantly, Tarrlok reminds himself). So no, this time he can't muster enough sympathy to feel sorry.

Still, the tears make him panic—he didn't mean to make him cry; he didn't even know his brother was still capable of it. This isn't the same pattern they've always fallen into: he's used to Noatak rationalizing and himself assuming the angry (righteously!) role. Now Tarrlok strains to simulate a bigger-man expression that should say Neither of us deserves this drama so please, _please_ get a grip, before he realizes Noatak's face is buried in his hands. Tarrlok sighs and steps up, his good arm stretched out in midair for a few seconds. Then the hand drops. He waits: the crying is so silent, no part of him shakes. No agenda of moving someone with these tears can be discerned.

It comes out of nowhere and doesn't take long. Noatak looks up from his palms, the world's whole air hangs here. "I can't _not die_ for nothing," he says eventually, barely allowing the last word the credence of its existence. Then, with his eyes closed and his face turned away, softly as if beseeching someone not here:

"Don't let me not die for nothing."

Tarrlok stares bleakly into the chiaroscuro flesh of his brother's profile, and cannot decide if he is revealing real emotions or establishing more excuses. Then he glances at Korra—it's times like this that he wishes there is an audience of some kind. To help him judge or at least _witness_ what he's been dealing with in no more than one day. Remaining infuriated is another thing harder to do when alone. He had suffered through all those therapy sessions. All those sessions! If only they were home, Tonja would have calmed him by just being there. That's the thing about her. She remains unmediated in his anger; they were drawn together under its canopy.

_Tonja. _All this talking, somehow he's been refusing to give any thought to the notion that a detail might be hovering around the house at this very moment. An internal shudder. "How much time do I have left?"

"Plenty," Noatak says peacefully but his voice instantly back to business, his face already dry. And it's a relief, to see his brother is after all mature enough not to seem embarrassed for crying—it would only make things worse. "In fact, I don't believe the Canines will be focusing on your whereabouts at all, let alone tracking you down," exhorts Noatak. "I'll tell people you're leaving for the carnival—speaking of which, at this moment Gaoling in Earth Kingdom seems ideal. Try and think of it as a family vacation, which it is in essence: pleasant weather, more entertainments on an ordinary day than seven Glacier Festivals combined." Cocking his head slightly. "I'll reach you after things are settled. I have connections there, people we can both trust. This is not permanent."

Tarrlok waves his wooden hand, dismissive. "Don't. Just don't."

"I mean it."

"I don't care if you meant it. You don't get to _reach_ us. Do I look stupid enough to head precisely where you point?"

"You'll be back," says Noatak mildly. "I don't enjoy the fact any more than you do, but this is home."

"Well, I don't enjoy it, and it's not home. Home suggests root of a proper _former_ family and I currently consider myself of having none."

Noatak says again You will be back, and gives a throaty laugh with what seems to be genuine fondness.

"Oh and," he adds casually, "just for safety's sake."

A sharp pain on Tarrlok flank and Noatak is beside him. The very air around them must have bulged: a weak noise escapes. The embrace is nothing like a hug. To an untrained eye the transition would seem like mutual support of two wounded soldiers after a lost war. Held there while his upper body slowly slips down against Noatak's, Tarrlok can only feel his limbs opting out; his breath rises and falls, hard to hear against the roaring thumps of his heart. Noatak's arm is getting more and more of his weight, the muscles bulging and hardening. He can feel.

"Relax, it'll only take a second."

The thumb on his forehead is warm and his vision explodes with light. The pain receding is an obscene pleasure as his legs finally give. He makes a blind grab for the only thing substantial, his brother, and feels the hands stop the ground from wafting up. This is what I have always had. _This is what I am_. The snow around me is mine, the water in the air is mine, the sweat seeping through three layers of clothing is unpleasant and real and mine. The blood inside me—_us_—is mine. Three _bodies_. Three thumping hearts. _Mine_. It turns out until now he has never truly shivered. This time Noatak doesn't let him fall, he holds him for a few more seconds like that—one hand at the back of his neck, the other pulling him very close—until the sound of breathing refluxes and his legs come back. He lets go.

Tarrlok has rehearsed the day he gets his bending back for so many times, but nothing in even his grimmest experience has prepared him for this, or for the senses shooting through him, carrying sharp edges, newly unraveled and refusing to settle. More than anything they hurt, and more than anything the hurt is sweet. And he hates and loves it so much. It would not keep still and changes shape inside him. His hands on his knees and coughing excessively, entering some other type of detachment. A clearance. He considers bending the snow into some shape—_any shape he wants_. Instead Tarrlok stays still. Part of him hovers just above, nibbling at his consciousness:_ This is no longer your part to play_. He doesn't owe this man a thing. He needs to go home and make sure Tonja and Tullik are okay. He wants to hold someone in his arms. Anyone will do. Anyone but him.

"You might want to do something about your face," says Noatak tentatively. "It's less than ideal for travel."

Tarrlok ignores this entirely. The air stays as if lifted and left there to puncture.

"Just one more thing," he says after some appropriate minutes. "Just let me get this last thing straight."

"Yes, Tarrlok."

"If I had kept my calm in the barn, were you ever going to tell me the truth? If all went well and you managed to bring her to Pakak—you'd just… be gone, again, wouldn't you?"

Noatak offers a hand, he looks so very tired. "Just go home. I will find you and you will be back."

"No, no. Do tell." The air is overclear, colors so frighteningly bright something must have caught fire. "This time I volunteer for more of your explanations. So, be that lawyer again: What have you got to sell to your boneheaded client?"

Withdrawing his hand, Noatak buries his face in his palms.

Their time spent together ambient and fading, sharp threads of chills against Tarrlok's teeth: "It's alright. Just tell me."

"I'm sorry."

"What? I can't hear you."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what you had to do to me, that kind of sorry?" The desire to try bending becomes acute and corporal. Tarrlok slowly gets on one knee; his voice remains unimpressed. "Nice."

"No." With his head lifted and voice full: "I'm sorry."

It's only that each moment happens twice.

"You think this makes up for what you've done?" Tarrlok clenches his fists, the snow under his feet crunching then turning into ice.

"No."

"You think this makes us even?"

"No."

The silence is a hemostat. The unbearable focus ascends by levels. "This was a good life. Built this…" Looking around, Tarrlok puts a palm on the ice. "Built this together."

Noatak moves his hands down and looks at him, his tears large and proper and running over the hand covering his chin. For a moment Tarrlok considers meeting this distress with his own. Instead he grows harder inside. Which causes the pain, which more poignant—stuck together or torn apart? Not existing until he needs you. Being contingently there when wanted and duped away when cumbersome. A roof. The old roof. A child to educate or rather, reeducate. Canines waiting mindlessly to tear at meat. His absent stare a mirror you can no longer feel or see yourself without. Wearing the mask your face grows to fit. Drawn all the way into his web, depending upon his lie, impotent to speak against it. The face of the mother whose entire existence was a willed translucence being mimicked with perverse genius and chilling precision. So afraid to wake her up as if knowing the truth would have killed her where she stood. _Not this, come what may, not ever again_. You are the one that survived: thirty years ago the blood inside you had curved down and rightward into a darkness that receded before you and you survived. Nothing like a trance now. Nor does your own voice alter. You're right here, speaking, coherence is all you have left, your last chance:

"So help me degenerate spirits from all realms." Tarrlok, crying himself now, gets up from where he kneels and faces his brother. "If I didn't have someone to look after, someone to care about so deeply your rotten heart will never come to comprehend, I'd be spending my last personal breath making sure you pay for everything you've done, everything you've made me do…"

"Tarrlok…"

"I may not be able to menace you the slightest, not with my contempt, not with bloodbending, not even with my blood—I'm your fucking brother, Noa—" shaking and beginning to loathe himself, for even now, even now… Tarrlok still can't generate enough spite for the man— "I was supposed be _it_, I was that one thing… the one thing you had left. And here we are, I've got nothing this time, nothing for you, because you never had any to lose, and because I was never equipped for that specific category of hate you feed on. But I'm willing to bet the days of you getting away with it all are not endless. I feel it in my bones: someday, soon, someone able enough will have you duly punished. And I'll live long enough to see it happen, afar with my family, who will soon enough learn the truth about you. They will not—don't look away!—will not end up paying the price for your doing without seeing your real color. This is the sole reason for which I'm doing exactly what you want, _for the last time_. Only it is I who am doing the leaving. I am, _I_ am… I'm the one that abandons you. You fucking cunt, you chilly depraved fucking piece of shit. _I am_. You don't get to do this to me, not anymore."

* * *

a relatively short chapter before things get complicated. still this was the most uncomfortable and unattractive I've ever felt writing. I could practically hear Junot Diaz judging my narrative choices (misogynistic assholes debating the merits of kidnapping while their victim literally lies by their feet) and lack of female subjectivity. I suppose it's only so easy to keep the notions in your own head that X [female character] isn't created to "balance" Y [male character] out or to accentuate some older men's immaturity or sophistication, and that XX can't just be the wife of some other guy. so there's another problem with fanfiction. until everything is done you'll just have to live with the fact that your characters not only look like but actually _are_ straight up dickheads at this point partly because of poor narrative choices, partly bc you as a writer is entirely a ball of gags and clichés. it's a good thing nobody read this, then. and if you did: I'm just sorry.

some actually writing-related notes will be slowly updated on tumblr chakra11


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